At a budget price of 0.59p, Super Mega Worm is a great little time-waster styled in the vein of a Super Nintendo game. The year is 2012 and human excess has ruined and polluted the Earth; as vigilante mega worm and planet protector, Wojira, it’s up to you to wipe out humanity and save what’s left of the world.
After hatching from its egg, you guide Wojira as it burrows beneath the surface and leaps out of the ground to eat humans. A slider in the lower left side of the screen controls the perpetually moving worm, and although it might seem tricky at first, it’s fairly intuitive after ten minutes or so. If you prefer a more hands-on approach you can choose to play with tilt controls, but you’re better off with the slider as sharp turns are tough with the tilt.
The goal is to eat the target number of humans to reach the next stage racking up as many points as you can. It starts off simply with civilians who pose no threat to you, but as you advance, you’ll have to contend with the police force, gun-toting rednecks, and even the army. To prevent you from hiding underground for too long Wojira’s appetite requires constant feeding, meaning you’ll have to eat live stock to counter the constantly diminishing health bar. This formula continues, with a few bonus stages interspersed, for as long as you can survive, but the simplicity is fresh and compelling rather than stale and repetitive.
Part of that is down to the upgrades Wojira can acquire, which take the form of an acid spit projectile and a close-range EMP blast. The worm also grows in size as you progress which acts as a double-edged sword; the increased body mass gives you more momentum and speed, allowing you to jump up greater distances to take out helicopters and aeroplanes (and even space ships if you can get a big enough combo). The flip-side is becoming a bigger target for missiles, which means you’ll have to eat more animals to recover your health.
If you’re looking for some cheap arcade thrills, Super Mega Worm is the way to go. It barely bites into your bank account or the precious flash memory of your iDevice (11.9 MB), and it also supports the recently-launched Game Centre. Add to that plans to implement a new control scheme (traditional directional pad) and new game modes and achievements, and it’s a hard bargain to pass up.