WORMS
RAMBO CRITTERS RUN AMUCK
A Review of WORMS
by Derek F. Tarvin
At first look, WORMS might not look like much. Don’t give up on this
strategy-action game just yet! With Team 17’s development of WORMS, Ocean of
America, their distributor, has brought us a fresh and creative idea, that’s
fun for the whole family. You’re not raising a worm colony for fishing
though. These little critters are going to blow each other up by your
command. WORMS takes the uniqueness and appeal of games like Lemmings by
Psygnosis and provides landscapes similar to something from Scorched Earth
by Wendell Hicken. Even if this genre of gaming isn’t usually to your
liking, the humor factor should tickle your funny bone and keep you playing.
This side-scrolling game will have any player laughing out loud at their
team’s antics in an addicting turn-based strategy game with an action twist.
Though some people might find it an accurate analogy, having worms equipped
like Rambo might seem a bit odd. Before too long you’ll be quite protective
of your new-found friendly critters. You command your team of worms by
attempting to eliminate up to three other teams of worms, controlled by
either computer or other human opponents. Your goal is to have the last worm
alive be on your team.
The gameplay is relatively simple. Each team alternates turns with
individual members of their team. Once a worm is selected, you try to move
your worm into the best position to inflict damage on whatever other target
worm you see fit. Once your target is in your sights, the key is to pick the
best weapon to cause the most damage to that worm and hopefully other enemy
worms around it. Your worms carry a bit more than dirt. Your weapons are
numerous and range from bazookas and grenades to time-bomb sheep. When it
comes time to fling a grenade or estimate your bazooka trajectory, whip out
your Physics book and refresh your memory on trajectory theory. After
testing the wind by wetting your finger, you can only hope your trajectory
guess will inflict the most health damage possible on the enemy worm. If you
manage to outsmart your opponent’s team and have the last worm standing,
you’ve won the round.
On the surface this sounds sort of bland, but Team 17 has taken this idea of
army worms and given them a distinct personality that is downright funny to
watch. So you toss a grenade towards an enemy, it bounces off the landscape
and right next to your target. BOOM! Your enemy worm bounces off the cliff
he was on and falls into the dirt below head first. He pops his head out of
the sand and says "you’ll regret that!" in a high-pitch worm-like voice
(imagine what worms might sound like). The worms bounce, jump, and even whip
out their communicators to teleport. Most often though, they pick a weapon
and give a battle cry as they aim it at an enemy worm. The more accurate the
weapon was, relative to its target, the higher the health damage. Most
weapons only do a maximum of 50 points damage out of a hundred, so you’ll
have to utilize strategy to win.
If the varied effects of grenades and bazookas don’t grab you, the karate
kicks or air strikes should. The possibilities are almost endless. Each
round is begun with a combat landscape being generated from 4 million
possibilities. Each of these landscapes has a code associated with it, so
they can be re-called if you want replay one you liked. These landscapes
aren’t ultra detailed but they each have original themes. You’ll be ducking
behind a giant lolly-pop one round and leaping off a stage coach in another.
The detail of the worms is a bit lacking, but their animated movements and
speech easily makes up for it. Ocean software has also provided a utility on
their web site to convert any drawing you can come up with into a useable
landscape! The graphics are not ground-breaking, but the limitless set of
possible backgrounds and attractive cut scenes between rounds combine to
form a fun package.
The sound effects and speech are the most appealing element in the game. The
explosions and other digitized effects are adequate, but it’s the worm’s
speech that really stands out. Whether you’re playing alone versus the
computer or with four human opponents sharing a keyboard, anyone who hears
the worm’s speech is bound to get hooked (no pun intended). The background
music is also characterized by the overall graphical theme of your
background as well.
The manual is simple and the controls are intuitively laid out. Use of the
keyboard for movement and weapon execution, coupled with the mouse for quick
weapon selection, makes jumping right into the action a snap. Once your
individual skills are tuned, grab a friend and take turns at the keyboard.
If you are really daring, grab 3 friends to join in the fun! Though modem
and network play is not yet supported, Ocean promises this feature in a
soon-to-be-released patch.
WORMS is an original idea that has been packaged in a highly entertaining
game. Gameplay is easy to figure out and each game should prove to be
different. It’s no wonder that WORMS has a huge following across the web. Be
sure to check out the WORMS homepage and see what landscapes other players
enjoyed, or just learn the lyrics to the WORMS theme song. WORMS provides a
refreshing basic strategy interface and fills it with humorous antics, which
makes it fun for the whole family. The theme behind gameplay is to blow up
the other worms, so parents should note that there is a violent nature to
the game. Note that even in the nicely rendered cut scenes between rounds,
the violence factor is toned down with cartoon-like sequences. Though the
strategy in WORMS is pretty basic, it’s involved enough to attract even the
most seasoned gamer.
Ocean’s web site has a demo version of the game that should give a taste of
the antics and gameplay you can expect from the full-version, minus some
advanced features and more weapons. If you find you can’t get enough of
these lovable little creatures, get ready for an add-on to WORMS with a
number of new landscape themes among many other enhancements. Until then,
may the best worm win!
Copyright 1996 by Derek F. Tarvin for InfoMedia. All rights reserved.*
Gamer’s Zone Scorecard
| Product: |
WORMS |
| Company: |
Ocean of America |
$49.95
System Requirements:
IBM PC Compatible, 386DX33, DOS 5.0, 2X CD-ROM, 4MB
RAM, mouse. Preferred:486DX66,supported sound card.
Breakdown:
Fun Factor 4
Graphics 3
Sound 4
Interface 4
Replayability 4
Overall Score:
(* 0 rating, 0 votes)
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