The graphics in Hogs of War feel a bit dated, a little more bland than perhaps they needed to be. The vast expanses of land are broken up by a few trees and lots of hills, but the world as a whole still feels unoccupied. There's a good deal of polygon breakup as well, especially when you're using a sight and looking over water. This is all pretty minor, however. The character models, on the other hand, have just the right mix of style and goofiness that's required for a self-parody like Hogs of War. Some of the characters look like utter dorks, but some of them look really cool, like the Spy. And then you realize that you think a pig looks cool, and it all becomes funny again.

The sound effects are merely adequate, with plenty of explosions and gunshot sounds and whatnot. Nothing particularly fancy here, but nothing too bad either. The voice acting, on the other hand, is damn near perfect for the game. Each team hails from a different country, from the Sow-A-Krauts to the Sushi Swine, and they all speak with exaggerated foreign accents that only make the game funnier. And the commander, who has a bad habit of breaking up into incoherent rambling, is just the right touch for the game. Fortunately, you can turn the voice acting off after hearing it a few times, so that you can enjoy the game itself more and the silly voices less. The music is absolutely appropriate, the sort of cheesy war-time tunes that you hear on those old war film reels. Rousing and metallic, it all works well.

The game itself works too, for the most part. It's got a pretty tough learning curve after you get past the first few stages, and the game never really relents from that point on, but as a general rule, the game's entertaining enough to keep you going after losing ten times in a row.

There are two major modes of play -- single player and multiplayer. In the Single Player mode, you pick a team to take the continent of Saustralasia over, the world's best source of swill. The plot is trite and yet somehow humorous, with areas of the map like Hogshead and Arstria. You go area by area, facing off against the various other countries as you march across the country. You start off with untrained grunts, and as you beat the levels, you get the ability to promote the various pigs into different jobs, making spies and bombardiers and pyrotechnics and other fun things.

The game is, basically, a 3D Worms, and uses the same style of play. Each team takes a turn, one person at a time, while the other characters simply stand around. You have an arsenal of weapons that grow as the swine get promoted, and weapons appear on the maps as well. Most levels have a gimmick, like an assault on a fortified location or battling in the trenches. It's all timed as well, so you can't just wander around aimlessly for as long as you like. Precision and speed are the key.

In Multiplayer mode, up to four people can hand off the controller and fight each other. There are two different modes of multiplayer -- Survival, where you simply want to be the last team alive, and Deathmatch, where you want to kill more of the other person than they you. There are quite a few preexisting levels for you to play on, and the game can generate a near-infinite number of random levels in both modes to entertain you as well. Each level has a code, so you can write it down if you found it really enjoyable.

The single-player campaign starts off simple enough, but by the time that you're taking over the Saustralia segment of the map, the game gets tough. If you're not a perfectionist that wants every hog to survive each level (you get a bonus if they do), it's still not too bad, but keeping all of the players alive through some of the scenarios is damn near impossible. It's fortunate that the AI is often idiotic, never picking up items and not utilizing jumping and hiding to the best degree. It has near-perfect aim, though, so beware.

The multiplayer difficulty, of course, stems from how good your friends are. Let them play a few levels of the normal game to get a feel, then stomp over them mightily.

The controls are simple and intuitive, once you know what you need to press to get things done. The pigs move a little sluggishly, though, especially when it comes to turning. I've seen speeding semis with tighter turning radii than the ones these pigs have, and it's wont to drive you nuts. The various weapons with 'power meters' require practice to get right, as (for example) thrown items go a lot shorter distances than weapons like bazookas. The interface is clean and understandable, although I thought the loading time to save the game is pretty atrocious.

Hogs of War is an entertaining little romp. Its main pull is the multiplayer, as it's basically the next generation of Worms. The single-player campaign is entertaining, but often stacks the odds highly against your favour to make up for the poor AI. The graphics are rather weak, and the controls sometimes make you want to scream, but in the end Hogs of War is an entertaining little game perfect for rainy days, gaming parties, and fans of the genre. As long as you don't go in expecting a masterpiece, you'll find a pleasant little romp in the sty.