Hogs Of War - humorous compilation of the good things what Turn-based strategy madness can offer.
But today we have some 3D oriented Worms’s games, and If we compare them with HOW – the hogs game surpasses some elements found in Worms 3D and Worms 4: Mayhem.
Yes, the graphics are outdated, but as for me – this isn’t the criterion for a good game – graphics is only presentation of story, mood and game-play. If you could manage to ignore these rough graphics, you could extract the same kind, or even better enjoyment from HOW.
You can create more twisted blows here, you can humiliate your opponent in more ways (cattle prod, knife, punch, sword or even jumping on enemy’s head will cause 1pt damage), you can enjoy many unbelievably powerful weapons (Air Strike, Super TNT, cluster grenade, Super Shotgun, 1000LBS (fired from Artillery units, found in later levels), and more). Hell, you can even ride tanks, hide into shelters, fire from some Artillery and other occupy-able units and do even more funny and laughable things. Yes, the humour is here – starting from voice-over, finishing with maps, environments, and atmosphere and game-play itself.
HOW can be played in at least two ways, and these ways will vary a lot in the measure of difficulty.
The simplest, but can result as the hardest in the final missions, is the method of playing this game similar as any Worms game – i.e. not to worry about each individual, but to concentrate the attention to team. In this way – the round can be won with one worm standing.
If you are playing HOW in this manner – the result will be negative, because you wouldnt be able to collect enough promotion points, so you wont be able to promote your hogs – make them stronger, with new weapons and abilities. So, the final missions could be impossible to beat, in my humble opinion, because the enemy would be much more superior (private Vs Legend isn’t the best tactics).
The other way is to care for each individual hog – to heal, to hide, to involve strategy, indeed. If all the hogs are alive after match – you will be provided with one valuable promotion point with label Survival bonus. Yes, it is worth to fight for it. So, take a ton of patience and strategic mind with you, and the countless replays are recommended here.
So, HOW is a hard but enjoyable experience even today (in fact, I completed this game only few days ago), recommended to any fan of Turn-based strategy genre, especially for those loving Worms series, if they can get past that rip-off feeling, which may occur due to borrowed game-play elements. But hey – Team 17 borrowed the Worms series game-play elements from so-called Artillery genre, and from games like Artillery, Scorched Earth and more.
So, things should be fine for die-hard Worms fans, when attempting to enjoy the HOW.