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I have always loved the Worms franchise, going back to its roots on the PC so many years ago.  It has always been deceptive on its surface, sucking you in with rather simplistic gameplay, but underneath that simple veneer, you find a surprisingly deep strategy experience, wrapped up with a fine layer of comedy.  The formula has pretty much stayed the same throughout the years and the multiple incarnations of the Worms franchise, and Worms Battle Islands is no different.  It continues the Worms franchise, complete with all the features we love, in a portable package and shoehorns in multiplayer.

The core of Worms Battle Islands consists of a campaign that has you taking over six distinctly different islands, and each island containing several levels that has to be finished in order to take over the island.  The gameplay is pretty much the tried and true method of Worms, units spread across a map and then each worm performing an action in each turn, until one side is eliminated from said map.  Rinse and repeat for each level in the game.  It is not a bad formula, but there is little that is added to the mix.  Sure, the gameplay is enjoyable, especially as I now had Worms on the go, but the game slowly started to work its way past my point of enjoyment and more into the phase of “I have had enough of this” and I put it away.

While the missions are pretty straight forward, I was surprised by the Jekyll and Hyde AI personalities of the enemy Worms.  One moment they are taking out several of my guys with pinpoint precision, and then the next moment, they launch a missile into a land mass above them which sends them off of a cliff to a watery grave.  Sure, it adds the illusion of the AI not always being perfect, but it also adds a layer of contrived mistakes.  If the AI can manage to ricochet a grenade off of three surfaces to land right next to me, it should not be dumb enough to send itself to a suicidal doom by launching itself off a cliff.

Worms Battle Islands does add online multiplayer to the mix, and it can be a lot of fun playing a quick game against a live opponent, but I had some difficulties connecting to matches at certain times.  I cannot say if it was a game issue or a PSP connection issue, but when the games did connect, it was a lot of fun with the different game modes available.

As with all other Worms titles, Battle Islands also offers up a ton of customization options for your team of Worms, complete with voices, masks, mannerisms and so much more.  I have found myself spending more time in here tailoring a complete persona for my team, building just the right combination of all the items available.  And of course, the more matches you play and win, the more items you can unlock to customize your worms.

I would say that if there is a big flaw with Worms Battle Islands, it would be some of the atrocious load times that are associated with the game.  There are loading screens at many points in the game, and for a title that was running off of a memory chip in my PSP, it seemed to take far too long to transition and load to screens or menus.  Even just going from the main splash screen to the main menu was a wait of at least 15-20 seconds.  I am not sure what is happening behind the scenes with these loads, but they take too long, and start to grind away at your enjoyment of playing the game.

Worms Battle Islands is a good Worms game, but it is a lot of the same game that has been released countless times over.  Sure, it is on the go, and you do get some great multiplayer features and well as a fun single player campaign, all priced rather competitively.  That said it is a tough sell for a game you have probably played many times over on countless platforms.  You should look at it if you want to play Worms while mobile or if this is your first experience with the franchise.  Otherwise, you might want to wait for the next innovation in the franchise.  Worms Battle Islands gets 3.5 out of 5 Aeropausonauts.

Check out Worms Battle Islands and other PSP  reviews at Test Freaks