Swarm Review

The game Swarm, available on the Playstation Network for £9.99 and Xbox Live Arcade for 1200 Microsoft Points, begins with a blue blob crashing into a planet, full of mayhem and destruction, and the blob extends out a tentacle. Emerging from the tentacles are fifty blue, gremlin-like creatures called swarmites. The little guys then go in search of DNA, in an incredibly dangerous and life threatening environment, to bring back to the giant blob called Momma, so that it can transform and grow.

Swarm puts the player in control of the fifty swarmites which have to manoeuvre through the stages of the game. The stages have the swarmites navigate through treacherous terrain in order to gather the DNA for Momma, whose tentacle will gather them up at the end of the stage as well as place them into it in the first place. There are a variety of ways that the little guys can kick the bucket when attempting to gather DNA though. From falling to burning, electrocution to impaling there are just under twenty deaths they may meet. However if any of them do die there are points on each stage where you can get some back. As long as you have at least one swarmite survive you can keep going and regain more. As for the swarmite abilities they can huddle together, spread out, charge forward, jump, tackle items, throw items and climb up each other creating a tower of swarmites. They can also jump in huddles and in their tower. The abilities seem like a lot to take in at first but are really easy to pick up and some get introduced gradually through the early stages.

The stages could be seen as throwing the player in at the deep at end at points with a fairly steep difficulty curve. The abilities are easy to pick up but the stages are very hectic and you may see yourself at checkpoints again from unexpected traps. However aside from being rewarded a score from collecting DNA enemy swarmite deaths also bump up the score, as long as at least one survives, along with the score multiplier. Another reward from swarmite deaths are the death medal’s which you get for the variety of different ways they die, ones for practically all your swarmites dying at once too, so even if the difficulty keeps knocking a player back there are amusing medals to receive. Bouncing back to another problem however, you need to reach certain scores on each stage to unlock the next, so you may find yourself replaying a stage a few times not just for a higher score but to progress. Competing with other high scores does lead to an element of replayability on each stage though.

Other game elements of mention are the sounds of the game which lends to the feel of a devastated alien planet. There are some interesting boss fights to look forward to and the sometimes amusing varieties of swarmite deaths are quite dark in humour. There is also a grand total of all swarmite deaths that every person playing the games has had on the main menu, currently it is over 30 million, and if you get bored you can always press triangle on the main menu even if it tells you not to.

If you want a look at the game in action check out the video below:

 

The Good

• Easy to pick up, play and enjoy – simple controls to learn quicky
• Rewards even in failure – death medals
• Dark humour – swarmite deaths and stupidity

The Bad

• Forced replayability – required scores on each stage to progress
• Unforgiving difficulty – thrown in the deep end with stage hazards

Swarm
• Developer: Hothead Games
• System: Playsation 3 (PSN Network), Xbox 360 (Xbox Live Arcade)
• Genre: Platformer
• Players: 1

Other Recommended Titles

• Lemmings (Playstation 3 (PSN))
• Little King’s Story (Nintendo Wii)
• Patapon (PSP)