System: Nintendo Wii

Publisher: THQ

Reviewer’s rating: **

ESRB rating: Everyone 10+

Game type: Turn-based strategy

Kind of like: “Lemmings” with guns

Best feature: Some of the weapons, such as the guided missiles, are really fun to use with the Wiimote.

Worst feature: Other weapons are no fun at all to use with the Wiimote.

The bottom line: After a while, all “Worms” games begin to blur together.

“Worms: A Space Oddity” for the Nintendo Wii has the virtue of distinguishing itself a little by using the Wiimote.

Unfortunately, while the Wiimote is a tremendous boon with some parts of the game, it’s a hindrance with others.

In “A Space Oddity,” as with other “Worms” games, you control a bunch of little cartoon worms. The worms have weapons and try to blow one another up. On your turn, you choose one of your worms and move it around a 2-D side-view landscape. You can have the worm fire one of several different weapons. The worms throw grenades at one another, or fire lasers, or call down a strike from a UFO.

When you use the Wiimote to fire a weapon that homes in on a certain spot, such as a guided missile, you simply point at the screen and press the button. This is very nice. You can steer guided missiles around with a cursor on the screen, or teleport to an exact spot when you use the teleport weapon.

But to throw a grenade, you have to hold down a button, wave the Wiimote with your hand and let go of the button at the right time. This timing and motion can get really annoying very quickly.