What, prithee, is the Isle of Swill? You beseech me. I’ve never heard of such a thing! Tell me immediately, before I eat your dog and urinate on your couch! In lieu of a preposterous threat like that, I shall fire some informational details at your face.

Heed well, my friends. It’s a tale of warfare, tenacity, heroism and angry pigs firing rifles at each others’ delicate groins.

Hogs of War was released for the PlayStation in 2000. It’s a Worms-esque strategy title, in which it’s incumbent upon you to lead your porcine pugilists to conquer the world map. This is achieved via turn-based combat in a series of skirmishes, against each opposing nation in turn. The ‘levels’ consist of a certain battle, with successive victories accruing you more and more of the land of this anthropomorphic pig planet (which is called, naturellement, Saustralasia. That is to say, the currently-contested area is). The region is replete with swill. Acquiring this bounty will render your faction rulers of Pig Planet -which is not its name- and it’s an arduous journey to get there.

In Hogs of War, you are able to customise your squad with promotion points you earn for completing missions and bonus tasks. You can elect to follow a certain career path with each member, which will influence their individual arsenals and health values. Sappers can utilise close-quarters TNT and mines, for instance, while medics are the uber-powerful behemoths that can defeat vast enemy battalions with just a finely-honed fingernail, leaving only a meager puddle of bloody fragments and urine where they once stood. (Except I’m being facetious, and the lightly-armed medics have a proclivity for healing.) They will all eventually converge at the level of ‘Hero,’ the most powerful rank who can even summon airstrikes as the whim takes him. This is the ultimate soldier you can acquire, which is why the horror of the final level, The Isle of Swill, is so perturbing.

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In this last mission, you are beset by a squad of supersoldiers. These formidable foes have attained the rank of ‘Legend.’ They are further augmented over your Heroes with extra health, firestorm airstrikes, and -presumably- the ability to view the entire extended-edition Lord of the Rings trilogy in a single sitting without succumbing to butt-numbing and/or hemorrhoids. As such, devious chicanery is the best manner of dispatching these fiends. A strategic cattle prod-ing into the many poison pools that festoon the area is most effective.

This is no conventional boss battle, I’ll concede, but the Legends warrant the title nonetheless.