Worms Armageddon
Reviewed by Dale Kulas
The Game
Worms Armageddon is the sequel to Worms and Worms 2. The
game's basically teams of worms beating the heck out of each
other on a variety of terrains. This game is basically the
same thing with more added modes of play and new weapons.
Will this game seem like a brand new gaming experience, or
just some rehashed sequel? Let's get onto the review and
find out.
Graphics
Well, I'm sure this is disappointing to everyone, but the
third game in the series is still 2-D. In the old Worms
titles you got FMV's of the Worms doing some weird sketch
like a suicide kamikaze or something before every battle,
but there aren't none in here which was a major
disappointment to me. The only FMV's in here are the one's
where they introduce the name of the developers at the
beginning of the game. I gotta say though, this version has
the slightly better graphics than the N64 and PSX versions,
because the all the terrain looks picture perfect, and all
the animations are beautiful. Like I said before all the
game play graphics are in 2-D and most likely could've been
easily pulled off on the Super Nintendo (In fact there's also
a GB Color version of the game which has graphics that look
a lot like the one's in here. The game does tend to skip
somewhat, it's only minor skipping, but it's noticeable and
happens a couple of times per round.
Sound
The game uses the same opening background music as used in
Worms and Worms 2, but with some added lyrics later on.
There's only about 3 or 4 different tunes different game
play, plus a special tune play during 'sudden death. ' All
these tunes can also be heard off an audio CD player. But
most of the tunes sound pretty simple and aren't anything
special. The sound effects are well done, and everything
sounds just the way it should, like explosions sound like
explosions, gunfire sounds like gunfire, there's also a nice
little 'Hallelujah' said before the Holy Grenade goes off.
But just like the music, most the effects in here are pretty
simple, and nothing spectacular. The coolest part though
about the sound is the Worms voices, although most of the
samples are really simple, you can change different sets of
voices, like if you pick the sports theme, the worms will
stay stuff like, 'He shoots, he misses!' and other hilarious stuff too!
Game play
If you haven't of played any of the previous Worms games,
it's pretty simple, teams of up to 1-4 worms each battle on
a different series of terrains, using various weapons to
demolish each other with. The game controls are nice and
easy to manage, since it's turned based, just about
everything is easy to use, most weapons just involve
pointing a weapon in the direction you want it to go, and
pressing A to fire it, or holding A to and letting go to
adjust how powerful you want it to go. I problem I had with
the original Worms was that the team life bars were shown on
the top of the screen in big huge blocks that took up a lot
of the screen, but now it's replaced with 4 little boxes in
the middle bottom of the screen. The game has a convenient
box of weapons available by pressing one of the trigger buttons.
A major part of the Worms games are the weapons, and of
course, there's plenty of new one's here. Some of the cool,
new, weapons are the Banana Bomb, which is a series of
Bananas packed together with each one letting off a powerful
explosion. There's also a homing pigeon, which is a lot like
a homing missile, but you don't have to adjust the power for
it. You also have items to use in here like the Ninja Rope
which helps you go over gaps of empty tenches, and the
flamethrower which blasts you through the middle of a
terrain. And that's just the tip of the Iceberg folks,
there's many other weapons and items in the game, loads of
them, during the course of a game more of the powerful
weapons become available later on like the Holy Grenade, and
the Air Strike attack. You can also grab items and weapons
in crates that fall from the sky during the course of a
game. There's also weapon sets for you to choose from in a
game like, Blast Zone which has the heavy explosive weapons
in it like the Rocket Launcher, Holy Grenade, Air Strikes,
and so on, another fun weapon set is the Animal Farm where
you get Mad Cows, Homing Pigeons, and plenty of other wild
items, there's also a classic set for weapons only included
in the original Worms. And there's also plenty of other sets
available too.
There's plenty of game play modes. You can create your own
team of worms for use in the game, and you can customize the
team members tombstone, and specialty weapon, plus the game
keeps track of the teams stats like games won, lost, or
drawn and it's number of kills and deaths. For people new at
the Worms series, the quick start option just jumps you into
a game automatically, with a random Worm team, terrain and
weapon set selected for you so you can get familiar with the
game. The next mode of play are the missions, which is
basically a one player story mode of the game. There really
isn't nothing special about it, you can upload your team and
send them through boot camp first, where they practice some
target shooting with grenades and rocket launchers, then you
go onto the missions where you must complete a certain
objective like getting to a crate containing a weapon in a
certain amount of time, or just defeat a team of Worms in a
handicap match like 1 on 3, or 2 on 4. No cool FMV's here,
but just a little mission briefing. It might not be the
greatest one player mode, but hey, it's a great effort. And
the final mode of play is the create game mode where you can
pick up to 4 teams of worms, with each team having anywhere
from 1 to 4 worms on it, and by picking a map terrain,
weapon set, and customizing the options like HP for the
Worms, turn time, round time, etc. The game is turned base
so rounds do take forever to finish, but thankfully you can
force a 'Sudden Death' where either the land terrain slowly
sinks, or your worms lose hit points throughout the round.
Just make sure you got a lot of time on your hands whenever you play.
Replay Value
The game can be played by up to 4 players, with each person
controlling 1 team, or actually 16 players max, if each
player controls 1 worm, with only 1 controller being used
throughout the whole thing. I know it's alternative and all,
but it would've been a lot less a hassle if there was
another option where different teams can be assigned to
different controllers. The mission modes add some replay
value to the game, but aren't anything special, and aren't
even all that fun to play, plus games seem to last forever
if there's no time limit.
In Brief
+: A great multi player game with your friends, loads of new
weapons and terrains!
-: Takes forever to play a round, the missions aren't all
that great as they're cracked up to be, and the graphics and
sound are really simple for a 128-bit system.
The Final Ratings Rundown
Graphics: 6. 4
Sound: 7. 6
Game play: 7. 8
Replay Value: 7. 1
Overall: 7. 2 out of 10
Final Analysis
Another great addition to the series. I suggest if you don't
own any of the Worms games, then get this game because it's
a great multi player game. Even though the graphics and
sound are real simple, it's the game design and engine which
keep you hooked. But if you got either Worms or Worms 2 then
I recommend not getting this version, because it's practically
the same game with some new weapons and a couple of other items.
OR
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