You can't fail to love the concept of Creature Conflict: groups of animals armed to the teeth fight each other on alien planets. The concept is well executed. The cartoon-like graphics are brilliantly drawn, with smooth character animation. There's just the right level of humour as well, thanks to the voice acting and the way creatures cower when you have them in your sights.
The levels are clever, too. Each one is an entire sphere that you can wander over. The curvature of the terrain means it's very difficult to hit someone on the other side of the world.
There's a brilliant array of weapons, including the usual favourites such as machine guns, sticks of dynamite and shotguns, and more bizarre elements such as berserk mode, where you do more damage with your fists.
The game is turn-based, so you get 30 seconds to move your character and make your attack, plus seven seconds to run away and hide. Once your go is over, it's your opponent's turn to strike back. Each round gives you control of a different character, moving through them in order.
In this respect, it's exactly the same type of game as Worms. Creature Conflict's one advantage is that you have a choice of team to play, each with their own special abilities and weaknesses, so there's a lot more variation.
However, there's no escaping the fact that turn-based games can soon start to wear a bit thin, and after a few missions of playing against the computer you may lose interest. Still, there are multiplayer and online modes, so you can play one-off maps against fellow humans, which help extends the game's life span.
Creature Conflict is a well-executed and fun game to play, but if you own Worms or the original Creature Conflict there's nothing here that you won't have seen before.
System Specifications
STRATEGY GAME Windows 2000/XP, 256MB RAM, 1.3GHz processor, 1GB disk space
Computer Shopper Online