Worms Armageddon

While not the first game in the series, Worms Armageddon was the first time I ever experienced true multiplayer mayhem.

Worms is (in most cases) a 2-D side-view turn-based strategy game. Were there enough hyphens in that sentence for you? In case you have never played a game in the Worms series before, the game goes something like this: between 2 and 4 teams enter into a death match. The action is turn based and you have X number of seconds to complete each turn. Your “worms” can walk sideways and jump over obstacles. Once you have selected a position you open up a weapons menu and choose your means of destruction. You lose when all of your worms have had their health brought down to 0 or when they have all fallen into the water.

If you’re using today’s ADD-riddled Madden-playing jock’s standard for graphics, then this game looks TERRIBLE! There are no polygons, no bump mapping, nothing but beautiful pixels. The colors are very vibrant and the level landscapes are always full of amusing objects. The game is very well animated, with a facial expression or body movement for about any situation that could possibly arise. The sound is another fun aspect, your worms talk while you play. Yelling simple phrases like “Take this!” or “Die you zombie bastards!” (Okay, so I made that last one up) really add to the flavor of the game. There are even speech settings on a per-team basis for your worms so that they have different accents and phrases based upon the dialect you choose.

Single-player mode is fun and all, but this game really shines when you play multiplayer death matches with your friends. As previously stated you can have up to four people playing in a single round. This makes for all kinds of chaos when choosing which worms to take out and when. Do you go after that guy on the red team who shot your worm into the water at the beginning of the game, or do you partner up with him to take out the green team who still has all four of their worms at high health? You have to remember to be careful though, as any competitive game like this can result in physical injury as well.

This game is incredibly fun and incredibly frustrating at the same time. Fun while winning, but the tides can quickly turn and you may find yourself at the bottom of a large pit created in the landscape after a super-weapon has been detonated. Then the other teams take turns lobbing grenades down into your pit and taunting you because you can’t get out. That’s when things start to get hazy and you wake up in a strange man’s house with blood on your hands and the taste of day-old rum in your mouth… But maybe that’s just me. Hmm… Where was I? Oh! The Worms series is pretty awesome and shouldn’t be too hard to find. So get some friends together and try not to kill anyone!