Worms Armageddon
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Medic 0 Comments , ,

I only got into PC gaming in 2009. Before then, I could have been considered a console gamer, but I only had a Wii and a Playstation 2, and before that I had a Playstation 1. I vividly remember saving my pocket money and my Christmas money with my siblings to buy the Playstation 2 a few weeks after it was released, but I have no idea what games we actually had for it. Luckily, our old PS1 games were all still compatible, which meant we could play the family favourite: Worms Armageddon.

The loud and somewhat annoying title screen for Worms Armageddon. Made at least one cousin jump out of their skin because of how sudden it is.
The loud and somewhat annoying title screen for Worms Armageddon. Made at least one cousin jump out of their skin because of how sudden it is.

Over the years, I have owned five copies of the game. We originally had a demo of Worms Armageddon from the official Playstation magazine, which we gave to one of our neighbours’ kids when we got the full game. I’ve also owned three separate copies of it on PC – the game on its own, a bundle back containing Worms 2 and Worms Armageddon and the copy of Worms Armageddon which came as a pre-order bonus for Worms Reloaded. As well as the aforementioned Worms Reloaded, I also currently own Worms Ultimate Mayhem (a combination of Worms 3D and Worms 4), Worms Revolution and Worms Blast, as well as Worms Forts Under Siege and Worms 3D for the Playstation 2.

The 2D and 3D games are all quite similar to each other. Revolution introduces class-based gameplay while Reloaded is basically a new, updated, less buggy version of the old games, although annoyingly with far less weapons than Armageddon and the like. Team17 did recently release a new Worms game, Worms W.M.D (Weapons of Mass Destruction) which includes tons of cool stuff (including vehicles, apparently) and a new. more stylized art style, but I’ve been waiting for that to go on sale big time, since… well, I haven’t really played their last few games. Still, it does look a lot nicer, less like a Flash game, less like a weird, pixel mess and more like its own little thing.

That being said, the early Worms games have their own unique look. The first Worms game was a lot less cuddly than Worms Armageddon.
That being said, the early Worms games have their own unique look. The first Worms game was a lot less cuddly than Worms Armageddon.

Saying that, I’d recommend most of them. Apart from Worms Forts Under Siege. That game was tedious as heck, incredibly slow and just all round bad. WFUS (which I always read as Wufus) tried to change gameplay up by building your own bases and things like that, and but because weapons were tied to what buildings you had, the game ended up being super long and slow and tedious. It was often easier just to kill the enemy team’s worms than it was to fight properly, building your base and destroying theirs.

Worms Blast is the odd one out here, which is actually a Worms spin-off game based on Bubble Bobble and that whole “shoot balls and connect 3 to break them” genre. It’s mediocre to say the least and the only reason I wanted it was because someone was giving it away for free in the old Off Topic SPUF Game Code Giveaway thread (RIP) and Worms Blast was what I played in the hospital when I was diagnosed with diabetes at the age of 10. There’s several other spin-off games, like a Worms Golf game, but I’ve never really had the incentive to play them. I want to blow up pink squiggly things, not play golf. Really you could play any Bubble Bobble rip off and get the same experience.Not worth it.

Of course the landscapes are completely destructible. Have a long enough game and any map will look like this.
Of course the landscapes are completely destructible. Have a long enough game and any map will look like this.

Despite all those games though, Worms Armageddon is probably my favourite of the bunch and the one I always come back to. Some say that Worms World Party is better, but the two games are pretty similar so you’re not missing out on a huge amount either way. They’re both great games. Really, now that I think about it, I didn’t get Worms Armageddon as a pre-order bonus. I got Worms Reloaded as an optional DLC to Worms Armageddon.

I don’t know why though. It might be because of the landscape editor, the game settings, the ability to create a game mode where your only weapon is a Holy Hand Grenade. Might be because of the HUGE number of voice lines and customization options for your team. Heck, it could even be the huge player numbers – you can have so many worms and so many teams. And you can create a ton of custom teams, both for players and for AI, as well. Maybe the reason is because it’s got a lot of different skill levels, from nooby messing around to online multiplayer ruled by Worms masters using abusing the Sling Shot’s weapon dropping mechanics.

Maybe it's because the end-game stats are often pretty funny, even more so when you have custom teams.
Maybe it’s because the end-game stats are often pretty funny, even more so when you have custom teams.

Maybe it’s just that Worms Armageddon is a genuinely good game all round.

But if you look at my Steam stats, you’ll see I have less than an hour of play time. That’s because most of the time, the family plays via brother’s copy of the game. Or we play the ancient, Playstation 1 copy, that somehow still works.

Medic

Medic, also known as Arkay, the resident god of death in a local pocket dimension, is the chief editor and main writer of the Daily SPUF, producing most of this site's articles and keeping the website daily.

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