"More fun with friends than you'd expect from a box labelled 'Worms'."

Gameplay:

The basic idea of worms is this: ''Kill everybody who's not on your team''. And why not?
Each team has four worms, and you use the various weapons they have (ranging from your bog-standard bazooka to the banana bomb and the explosive sheep) to kill all worms on the other teams. You can have up to four teams at one time (for a total of 16 worms) and all teams can be controlled either by the computer or by a human player. You haven't got a six-player adapter on hand, but you still want to have a four player worm fest? No problems, all teams are controlled by the one control pad, you just swap it over after every turn. Each turn you have 60 seconds to move your worm around the map, jump over obstacles, swing from things, whatever you want to reposition yourself to easier destroy the opposing wormy forces. When you've got to where you want (by the way, look out for those nearly invisible... *!BOOM!*... mines.) you pick your weapon from the available list, point it in the right direction, and let fly! Some of the weapons are easier to aim than others, for example the bazooka is blown about by the wind on occasion, while the homing missile usually goes to what you want. This game, as fun as it can be against the computer, really comes into its own with a couple of mates around. The game can get insane when you're passing around the controller, all four of you with youir own nasty plans for domination, screaming at the telly, basically having fun blowing the living daylights out of each other. Infact, it is entirely possible to have an entire nights sleep pass you by while playing this game with your friends. I should know, I've done it.

The controls take a little bit of getting used to at first, but once you work them out you should be blowing worms up left, right and centre without much thought involved. Some of the weapons are, as was mentioned before, pretty hard to use (infact I STILL can't get the bazooka to hit anything except my own worms), but you can pick and choose whatever weapon you are good with. You might like the grenades. Maybe the shotgun. You can have a fair bit of fun with the mines if you really want. Just a hint: Turn the move time-limit off until you get really good.

9/10

Features:

You can change the names of all of your worms and choose how much health they have up to a total of 16 different teams. You can also choose whether they are controlled by the computer, or by a human. All weapons can be tampered with to decide how many times each one can be used each round. Leave them on infinite if you're not a real strategy nut. There are well over 100000 levels to choose from, each accessed by typing in a random bunch of letters and/or numbers at the select screen (or a word if you want). This ensures that you'll never run out of different landscapes to kill each other on. The problem with the original Worms, however, is that there's only the one mode, the all-out war. But you should find that this one mode is more than enough to keep you busy for a very long time.

7/10

Story:

None. You are a worm. Kill other worms. Sorted.

N/A

Graphics:

Oh dear... these honestly arent this game's strongest point. All of the landscapes in the games, along with all of the worms, weapons, infact just about all of everything else, is completely 2D. This game could have easily been done almost exactly the same on a Genesis (it was, actually). The worms themselves are little more than small pink blobs (VERY small pink blobs at that). The good thing about all of this is that the graphics do very little in the way of detracting from the huge amount of fun there is to be had with this game.

4/10

Sound:

The sounds the little creatures make while maiming each other are nothing too complicated. Basic squeaks and words are muttered (Ouch! I'll get you!), and there is a sort of clanking as the various weapons (and worms) are thrown around, infact, the whole game is made up of sounds and music (with one blaring exception) which you would expect to hear inside your local pre-school. The music in-game is basically non-existant, little clanks and slow wind, but no real music to speak of. The exception mentioned before is the music heard at the title screen. This little tune is one of my top five favourite tunes from video games. It's repetitive, sure, but who cares?

6/10

Replay Value:

The huge amount of levels and the fact that you can play against another 3 people at once will mean that you will never play the same match twice. The fun never stops (especially against friends) and you will always be able to pick up and play this game. You can NEVER run out of things to do. The one major thing in this game that doesn't last, however, is the movies which introduce the levels. There are about ten of them, and each of them is funny once, work it out from there... Let's just say that skipping these movies is going to have to become a habit.

10/10

Buy/Rent?:

BUY IT BUY IT BUY IT!!!!!!!! But good luck finding a copy.

I garuntee that you will love this game.

You want to rent it first? I'd say your chances of finding it in your local Blockbuster are abour 6005978 to one.

Overall Score:

8/10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 10/10/02, Updated 10/10/02