The full title is “Star Hogs Lite: Online & Campaign Battles”, but I’m not putting all that in the title. That’s just silly. Anyway, they should just call it “Star Hogs Lite: Like Worms, But In Space”. Except, for all I know, this is a remake of a game that came before Worms. Possibly.

Whatever. It’s like Worms, but it’s in space. And it includes customisation features for your little space ships. And it’s online, unlike the current version of Worms. (Except, though, that when I tried to play online I couldn’t find a game. And tried quite a few times at different times of day.)

It’s really quite good, as far as it goes. You get attached to your ships, as you’ve added parts and painted them up and chosen their weapons and named them and everything. The control system is very well thought out and works well, though the pinching and zooming goes a bit funny sometime. A lot of levels are set in 360 degrees around a planet, so you really have to think about gravity.


It’s also only 59p right now, compared to the £2.99 cost of Worms.

So, a slam dunk for Star Hogs, then? Well, no. It only loses out to Worms in one area – and bear in mind I’m talking about the whole Worms series, not the iPhone version as I’ve not tried that yet – and that area is charm. Worms is a charming game, full of personality and funny. Star Hogs has graphics and presentation that are functional at best. It shouldn’t matter when everything else works so well (apart from the online, as mentioned) but, for me at least, it makes a world of difference.

Playing this Lite version didn’t really make me want to buy the full version of the game – though if the online had worked, I probably would have – but it did make me want to play Worms again. Worms is £2.99, though. Decisions, decisions.