The original Worms was fun and addictive. A team of, you guessed it, worms with a shared arsenal of weapons engages a rival group of worms with almost Chess-like game play: each turn in the turn-based game, a player selects one worm to use, select a weapon from the arsenal and attacks an enemy worm with that one.
The world got a massive facelift comparing with Worms 1, with more detailed worms equipped with smoother animation. The arsenal was expanded - everything from shotguns, to bazookas, to the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch (you fans of Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail will recognize this one). The battle areas, while still two-dimensional, look better and there are more varieties of them. Battle everywhere from the surface of Antarctica, Persian Gulf during a military operation, to the interior of Hell itself.
The game play is two dimensional, with two to six players (human or AI) each have teams of one to eight Worms, though never more than 18 worms can be in play at once. This game is similar to old artillery games like "Tank Wars or Scorched earth", each attack consists of choosing a weapon, and then deciding upon the angle of fire and the force behind the shot. The exception here is that a worm can move before it shoots, and briefly after.
Firearms such as pistols, shotguns, miniguns, and uzis must be aimed straight at a target, though effectiveness will reduce at range. Bazookas, grenades, and other slow-moving projectiles will fall due to gravity, and are also affected by wind. The physics are a bit odd and will take some time getting used to but some great curve shots can be made once you get the hang of it!
The sheer number of weapons is insane. There are four varieties of hand grenades alone: standard, cluster bomb (drops little bomblets when it explodes), homing cluster bomb (same as above but bomblets zoom in) and the all-powerful Banana Bomb, which is like a cluster bomb except it is shaped like a banana and is many times more powerful. Plus, there are other special grenade types not commonly found, like the Super Banana Bomb or the Holy Hand Grenade.
As one might suspect from the Banana Bomb, not all weapons in the game are serious. The Holy Hand Grenade, mentioned above, is thrown as a standard grenade, but instead of exploding when its timer reaches zero, the angelic voices of the is heard to sing "Hallelujah!". THEN, it explodes with frightful force. Keep in mind that unlike regular grenades, whose timers can be set anywhere from one second to five, the Holy Hand Grenade's is ALWAYS three seconds. Again, fans of Monty Python will understand why.
There are numerous other pop culture cracks throughout the game: one particularly rare weapon is the Salvation Army Kid, a chubby red-haired kid in a uniform who walks along playing a tambourine until he explodes.
The worms themselves are equipped with a complete set of voices. Any team of Worms can be given an accent from Angry Scots, to 007, to New York. Every one is exaggerated with cartoony style, to fit in with the rest of the game. The rest of the game does sound good, too. Different weapons have different sounds, incoming air strike go zoom across the sky, and the background music is funny and stylish.
The graphics are cartoony and fun. The worms have giant eyes, and their eyebrows and hands seem to float just beside the bodies. Everything is exaggerated just as much as the accents. Ever battled on a gigantic piece of cheese? Play Worms 2, and you soon will.
The vast majority of my experience playing this game has come from single player play. There is a campaign of sorts in the game, with specific game play scenarios, but its fun is limited. The place where the fun is virtually unlimited is in the custom games. You can tweak or completely change the weapons at will, and play with all sorts of custom settings: worm health, fall damage, wind, land mines, types of reinforcements, etc.
The multiplayer is shaky. The hotseat play isn't bad if you can find a few people willing to play and not fight, which can be harder than it sounds with some of the humiliating ways to be defeated in Worms 2. LAN play is the same, though slightly better as the other players aren't watching your screen as you play and so don't know your arsenal's status, etc. There is also modem play, but limited to 2 players and players not on dialup connections cannot join.
One could always take turns playing the turns for one team, but that leads to more fights than pounding on each other head-to-head, as strategies conflict.
Worms 2 is best left as a singleplayer game against a few computer-controlled worm teams.
Written by:
~Avalon
