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Earthworm Jim confirmed for iPhone

Virtual D-pad doesn't look too groovy

Earthworm Jim confirmed for iPhone

We were very excited to hear that Gameloft has grabbed the rights to bring Earthworm Jim crawling back from the retro gaming soil, and it also seems it's handling his first appearance on the iPhone.

Apple's platform should be more than capable of recreating the 1994 Mega Drive comedy classic, especially with the French mega-developer's programming weight launching all those cow's into orbit.

German website MacNotes.de apparently managed to grab a quick go of Earthworm Jim at GamesCom, and although the graphics are undoubtedly spot on there's one small matter that pours cold water down the back of Jim's super suit.

Earthworm Jim will apparently be using a virtual D-pad for controls, which have proven to be irksome at best - especially on games that require some careful platform navigation like this one.

There's little else Gameloft could do, given the iPhone's lack of physical controls, of course, but we can only hope that the small, clustered virtual buttons shown in the screenshot is a test, and the final version sees it swapped out for the considerably more accessible virtual analogue pad.

Still, it's great to know that the iPhone's not being excluded from Jim's triumphant return.

Spanner Spencer
Spanner Spencer
Yes. Spanner's his real name, and he's already heard that joke you just thought of. Although Spanner's not very good, he's quite fast, and that seems to be enough to keep him in a regular supply of free games and away from the depressing world of real work.