Свиньи на войне: Тактическая стратегия в стиле Worms

2000 video game

Hogs of War is a 2000 turn based tactics video game developed by Infogrames Sheffield House and published by Infogrames for the PlayStation and Microsoft Windows. The game is set in the First World War era where anthropomorphic pigs engage in combat. Hogs of War features 3D graphics and both a single player career mode and offline multiplayer, with voice artistry by British comedic actors Rik Mayall and Marc Silk. Development on Hogs of War began in 1997 by Gremlin Interactive, which was later purchased by Infogrames in 1999. Initial builds of the game were rough and cancellation was considered, but the game's developers asked for more time. The game received mixed reviews at launch but received high praise for its comedy. It drew numerous comparisons to the Worms series of games, in particular the 1999 game Worms Armageddon. A sequel was announced but never released, although the franchise has had subsequent board and card games and an official remaster is in production. The game is considered by some critics to be a cult classic.

Hogs of War is a turn based tactics game, where players take turns controlling individual members of their squad of hogs to engage in combat with the opposition, similar to the Worms video game series. Each level is made up of two or more teams of five, loosely based on nations competing in the First World War. During a turn, players takes control of a single squad member in a third person perspective to move around the map, including jumping over terrain and swimming over bodies of water, yet can only engage in combat when stationary. The main objective for the player is to conquer all five regions of the world map, with each region containing five missions against each opposing nation. efn|The final region contains six missions, and a team made up of members of each of the other nations. Through the campaign, characters can be promoted as the player progresses through the campaign by earning medals given for completing tasks, such as finishing the level with zero characters felled. The campaign features semi permadeath, where a character will be permanently lost after three deaths. Upon defeating all other nations and laying claim to Saustralasian mainland, the squad engages in a final battle on the Isle of Swill with the nationally ambiguous "Team Lard". Regardless of which chosen nation is victorious, all pig nations celebrate the end of the war. Despite this, a remaining soldier feels like nothing has been accomplished by the war. The sergeant I. P. Grimly (Rik Mayall) gives an upbeat message regarding the end of the war, stating that the war was all worth it for the medal received at the end.

Hogs of War was created by the founder of Gremlin Interactive, Ian Stewart. He was inspired by the film Babe and by the 1995 video games Command & Conquer and Worms. According to game developer Andrew Fox, the premise of the game was "Worms, except in 3D and with pigs". Development on the game began in 1997 and took 3 years to complete. This long development time was due to Gremlin Interactive being purchased by Infogrames in 1999. Two teams developed the game with a focus on different system versions. One produced the PlayStation (PS1) version and was led by Jacob Habgood, and the other for Windows was led by Fox. All sound and art assets were shared between both platforms while different 3D engines had to be made. The initial build of the game was described by Habgood as being "slow and hideous". It contained no gameplay elements and the pig characters were tall and humanlike. It was suggested to cancel the game, but the development team asked for more time. The next build was dubbed "Cubes of War" by the developers as it focussed more on gameplay rather than graphics leading to simple cubes replacing the pigs. This was to demonstrate that the gameplay was fun before another build added in graphical improvements for the pigs. Hogs of War was released for the PlayStation in Europe on 25 August 2000, with a North American release following on 29 September. The game was released for Microsoft Windows in Europe on 3 November the same year.