Daniel1987's Blogs

Yep, it’s retro week, where I’ve dusted off the PS1 in search of some gaming nostalgia. I’ve decided to start the week with one of my favourite PS1 titles, Hogs of War. Although being dubbed as a ‘Worms rip-off’ it took the genre to places Worms hadn’t touched on yet, and coupled with some awesome voice work, a 3D landscape and the customary weapons, gadgets and explosions associated with this genre made it a very enjoyable title.

The basis behind the ‘campaign’ was to capture the continent of Saustralasia, located in the South Pigsific Ocean, which is abundant in ‘swill’ the life-blood of pigs worldwide. This is divided in to 25 missions, gradually increasing in difficulty as you progress. Along the way, you'll earn promotion points, which you can use to improve your troops and upgrade them in to various classes, as well as acquire a number of painful weapons.

But the beauty in the title shines through in the general gameplay. It is very accessible and easy to navigate, and can be taken as seriously as you want it to be. Feel like going up and shooting your foe? Fine, go ahead and do it or you could use the bayonet on your rifle and stab your opponent in to the water or landmines, causing even more damage!

Also within the gameplay you’ll notice some excellent voice acting, inspired by the comedic genius of Rik Mayall, with a certain pig-related twist usually attached to statements by your troops. And this flows on even to the team names with some stereotyping thrown in for good measure. Tommy’s Trotters, Piggystroika, Sushi Swine, Sow-A-Krauts, Garlic Grunts and Uncle Ham’s Hogs are the teams you’ll go to battle with.

The only reasonable with this title is the quality of the environments in the graphics department. Even though it usually hurts the eyes to look at any PS1 title in 2008, they look bad even by the PS1’s standards, especially for a game released in 2000. But apart from that the pigs’ animations are clean, and all the troops are detailed quite well, as are the weapons.

Put simply you’ll have a blast (even literally) with this title. A decent campaign combined with multiplayer shenanigans once you get your mates over makes this one of my favourite PS1 titles, and I’d highly recommend picking this up if you can, especially if it’s on the cheap, as it has reached that pricey status that some PS1 titles get to.