Swarm Review

Pikmin! Lemmings! There, that’s those two glaringly obvious similar games out of the way, perhaps now we can get on with it. Except to say that personally, I’m reminded way more of the little aliens in Toy Story, crammed together in the bubblegum dispenser, all wide eyed and eager to please…
 

Ok, who wants to die first?

Henyway, Swarm. What’s the story? Well, you play as some sort of overlord with the power to command 50 little blue fellas that have been pooped out of their mother alien’s rectal flute and ordered to make it through a series of highly hazardous obstacles in order to collect valuable DNA and return it to mater – who wishes to convert it into some sort of sun hat.

Why no one’s told her that you can buy hats over the counter at any milliner the Universe over is anyone’s guess, and I imagine that if you were it might just ruin the game’s teeny plot, so we’ll skirt around that issue (since it holds no bearing on your enjoyment of the game) and just get on with the swarming.

So yes, you start each level with 50 of the little cuties and charged with the task of getting at least one of them to the other end of it, where mother’s waiting to suck you back up into her innards. Between you and the finishing, err, anus, are some particularly nasty obstacles that will, guaranteed, kill off great swathes of your little blue crew with that impersonal air that only walls of fire and caverns of mechanical teeth on spikes seem to have.



Not that this matters too much because every time you get one of your team killed you score points, and points are what this game is all about, because if you don’t score enough of them you don’t get to progress to the next level. The points can be multiplied through various means which go toward pumping up the boost bar until it adds another x1 to your multiplier, and this multiplier can be kept crackling away as long as you keep on killing your boys and finding those precious point scoring particles.

Essentially, you’ll need to be able to balance killing off the swarmites with getting to the point particles, and quickly, if you want to score enough to make it through to the next level. You’re helped in some way by check points, where the multiplier and score you’ve attained can be banked, and nodes that act like miniature Mother Alien drop shops, resupplying your swarm whenever you buzz over one.
 

Yeah, you can all die at once if you want. I'm flexible...

But you don’t want to go relying on too much help, because you’re never going to make it far if you don’t have the necessary skills to score big. You control the entire team with some simple commands, the left direction stick sending them in whatever direction chosen, the right trigger calling them together in a huddle, the left demanding they spread out, with A dealing with all jumping. As the game progresses new commands are added, like quick thrust, which enables the swarmites to smash into expendable objects, stack, which sees the entire team acting like a circus tumbling troupe, and speed boost, which you’re going to need to master if you want to get your little blue meanies safely over some of the giant pits that lay in wait.

At first, Swarm is a top laugh. Killing swarmites awards you with death medals for the various ways you can knock them off (and there are plenty), and controlling them, though tricky to start with, is thoroughly satisfying (I spent far too long just making them spread out and quickly get back into a huddled ball of blue blobs). However, insane levels of frustration are right around the corner and sooner or later you’re going to run into a level that will drive you mad with high-score failing fury.

Swarm expects you to take enormous amounts of pleasure from having to play the same level over and over again until you have worked out a way to score the points required to move onto the next level, and in that very mechanic this game will divide gamers right down the middle.

See if you can recognize yourself in this moment of real video gaming historyit’s a sunny Sunday afternoon and we’ve been playing footie over the park all morning. Knackered, we bundle back to one friend’s flat for some Fifa. One guy is so good at the game that he’s been winner-stays-on for over an hour. He’s been annoying us all with his skills for so long there’s a mild rage-buzz permeating the air. He plays a game against his older brother, who grows increasingly frustrated as the match goes on since, try as he might, he just can’t get through the final third and slot a ball into the back of the net. As the younger brother scores his fifth goal, older brother loses it, yanks the controller from the console, opens the 2nd floor window and hurls the thing as hard as he can into the street below, where it smashes into a million tiny pieces. The shops are shut. We have one bat. There’s six of us. Shit.

Swarm is going to ask you which one are you, younger or older brother, and then either congratulate you on your perseverance and gaming skills or wind you up so much that you’re going to break something you’ll regret breaking instantly.
 

Nope, not what we'd call an exciting screenshot either

God bless you if you have the tenacity to accept the challenge that Swarm provides, because it’s the sort of game that will deliver acute amounts of satisfaction when you’ve finally trounced it, but god help your TV/console/controllers/dog/local crockery shop if you’re the older brother above. It’s almost as if the guys that made this game have been playing classic video games from the time before saves were invented and wanted to give you a taste of those early days of home gaming but with the saves added in.

The wickedly satisfying variety of ways you can send your swarmites to their deaths.