These game designers have some crazy ideas for their products. Who would have thought of a blue spinning hedgehog as a hero? A little stumpy plumber with a 'tache? Next they'll be telling me that there's a platoon of worms better armed than Rambo and with more attitude....
Attention! Welcome to the world of Worms where you must command your army in military fashion used all the available weapons at your disposal and obliterate all enemy worms. The gameplay uses the simple strategy whereby One to sixteen players can play taking turns moving and firing at the opposition until one competitors army is wiped out. The game is quite good in one player mode but the fun really starts when you can blow up your mates. All the worm teams can be edited so you can have your own team and names making it more fun. Once you start a random landscape is generated of which there are thousands and then if off to battle...
The worms are placed at random throughout the landscape and then the battle commences. The first worm has an option of moving (well wiggling or jumping) and then shooting. The arsenal at your disposal includes bazookas, grenades, various guns, homing missiles, banana bombs and airstrikes. Some weapons have limited ammo, some don't and some are affected by the wind speed/direction. To fire your weapon of choice simply place the cursor at the angle you want, select the travelling speed and.... fire! If you are successful you will take a fair number of health points from opposition worms. If your worm is stuck, stranded or just generally out of the action there are options to teleport him or dig tunnels, build girders and use climbing ropes etc.
The graphics in Worms are not particularly impressive but because of the immense fun of the gameplay this can be overlooked. The worms are very small and basic as are the weapons, explosions etc. The cut sequences between levels are good though and very funny too.
As with the visuals the sound is nothing to write home about either. The worms have little cute sounding high pitched voices as the utter the odd phrase here and there and the weapon noises and explosions are equally as basic. They do the job that's needed though.
The title "Worms" didn't particularly excite me. The initial impressions including the graphics and sound definately didn't impress me and left me wondering - is this overpriced even for a platinum game. I had read reviews where it had been described as wonderful and totally addictive and I was wondering "Why don't I like it, what's wrong woth me. Anyway I played it a few times one evening and then decided to go to bed. "One more game" I thought to myself. About three hours later with my eyes propped open with matchsticks I decided I better call it a day....until tomorrow. I had the bug (no pun intended) and realised that all the previous reviews I had read were right. It's just a basic concept which is extreme fun to play.
