Over three years ago the indie game Death Worm by Game Maker community member JTR made a splash with its members and since then it has gone on to see many variations as others attempted to cash in on the concept. Now fans of the original can get their hands on an official version for the iPhone thanks to PlayCreek and it's clear that sometimes you can't compete with the genuine article.

Players can control their unholy beast with an analogue stick that provides a surprising amount of fidelity depending on how far out your drag the stick. Your aim is to consume or otherwise destroy the humans and their vehicles as they travel above you, leveling up and evolving as you complete the task set for you. Often this is simply to destroy a set amount of people, however this is occasionally mixed up with needing to complete the task in a set time limit or without taking any damage. Upgrades can help your survivability by making you faster or stronger, but power-ups like a fireball and a speed-boost can also be tweaked to give you more destructive power.

There are currently three levels to test your skills on, with each one tweaking the difficulty slightly to provide more of a challenge. The artwork is semi-realistic and perfectly crisp on Retina displays, though distinguishing between some humans can be hard as they're just so small. A mini-game in the form of an endless 'runner' of sorts is also available, giving players an alternative from the usual mindless destruction of the main game.

While demolishing silly humans is satisfying, the inability to do much more than ram or burn them can wear thin over time and it'd be great if alternative evolutions between the stages helped to differentiate them. Still, the pure joy of leaping out and swatting planes and helicopters out of the air or simply devouring humans en masse is hard to beat and Death Worm is prepared to go the distance to remain the king of killer annelids.