[Review] Worms Revolution

[Widgetcraft]

Worms Revolution

Title: Worms Revolution
Platform: PC, PS3, XBOX 360
Developer: Team17
Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
ESRB: Everyone 10+
MSRP: $14.99 Steam, $14.99 PSN, 1200 MS Points XBLA
Editor: Casey 'Widgetcraft' Miles

What's Hot: Unique graphical style; Interesting additions to the Worms formula; Solid gameplay; Sometimes funny humor

What's Not: Lackluster single-player; Sometimes annoying attempts at humor

There are few video games which I would consider able to stand perpetual play over the course of years or decades without change; even the best FPS available at any given time will be overshadowed over the course of only a couple of years at most, and future installments will have to step it up to compete. Worms is one of the few game franchises where the core gameplay has remained relatively stagnant since inception (all the way back in 1995) yet is still fun to play with friends even today. This may sound ridiculous to those of you unfortunate enough to have never played a Worms game, but any fan will tell you that the unbridled chaos of Worms warfare never stops being challenging and hilarious with a good group of friends.

To the uninitiated: A Worms game puts you in charge of a small group of heavily armed worms, typically placed across a 2D map at random. You are set against one or more opponents in charge of their own team of worms, and play out the game in a turn-based style where you get to move and attack with one worm per turn. The fun largely comes from the artillery style weapons, which involve lobbing or shooting a weapon with variable power behind it, having to adjust for wind and distance in the hope of hitting a small target. Additionally, a mainstay of the franchise is it's destructible environment; the entire map can be destroyed by the various missiles, bombs, guns, and other random objects (such as giant concrete donkeys dropped from the sky, and obedient trains of explosive ferrets) at your disposal. More fun than the success of a great shot are the often disastrous results of poorly thought-out attacks that end up backfiring on the player (I myself am well-known amongst my friends for being able to kill off my entire team with any weapon but the baseball bat).

Using the proper power and arc is key to hitting your target.

All of this is still true of Worms Revolution, so one might wonder what this has to offer over it's predecessor, Worms Reloaded, beyond a new paint-job. The answer is actually a fair amount. To begin with, Team17 have ditched the 2D flash-like art featured in Worms Reloaded in favor of 3D graphics. While the Worms franchise has had more than a few misadventures with 3D installments, this game maintains the traditional 2D gameplay. While in previous 3D installments the traditional simple cartoon art style of the franchise had been maintained, they have instead shifted for a interesting (and quite entertaining) claymation style. Everything from the worms, to the environments look as if they have been lovingly crafted out of clay by hand. This gives the game an interesting a very satisfying texture.

Additionally, a large amount of work has gone into the backgrounds of the levels. Every backdrop features a 3D environment, often with various fully-modeled critters running about, such as crabs, seagulls and rats. These are all massive, and provide scale to your tiny worm soldiers as they do battle, something I found missing from other installments of the franchise.

The backgrounds are fully rendered and full of life.

Adding to the presentation of the game is the nearly ever-present narrator, Don Keystone, an apparent nature film narrator studying the worms. He will guide you through the tutorial, as well as introduce and close each level of the single-player campaign. He can often be humorous, though sometimes his jokes fall flat, and he can grow tiresome after a while. His guidance in the tutorial levels can be particularly annoying as he guides you a bit too closely, longer than necessary even for new players.

The most touted new feature for the franchise is the addition of four soldier classes: Soldier, Heavy, Scientist and Scout. Each of these has it's own drawbacks and advantages. The Soldier is your typical worm as one would find in any game in the franchise, with average damage, toughness and speed. The Heavy is a bigger, beefier worm, able to take and deal more damage, at the expense of speed. The Scientist is the weakest of the bunch in terms of damage and resistance, but heals all of your worms at the start of each of your turns. Finally, the Scout is a small, fragile worm, who can move faster and jump further than it's compatriots. In addition to the statistical features of the worms, their size also comes into play. For example: The Scout can fit through smaller passages than the (much larger) Heavy. You purchase worms of each class using tokens earned in the single-player campaign, and can arrange your team as you see fit with whatever types of worms you like. As always, you can customize your worm's appearance with accessories like hats, as well as change their vocalizations with various voice packs (my favorite being Meme).

Customize your worms' appearance and voices.

More importantly, in this reviewer's opinion, are the new physics objects and water system added to the game. While the water in out-of-bounds areas is still an instant-death, there is a new type of water added to the game that actually flows about the map and reacts to it's environment. Sometimes you will find it in ponds or closed-in pockets on the map, while other times it can be introduced by the worms themselves by using new water-based weapons like the Water Gun. It is useful in two primary ways: If you can submerge an enemy in water, it will take damage each turn that it remains there; additionally, if a worm gets caught in the water's flow, the worm will be dragged along with it, possibly to it's doom in the ocean below!

The physics objects replace the objects in previous games that would add variety to the game's maps by being embedded in various parts of the level at random. While in previous games the objects simply became part of the destructible environment, in Worms Revolution the objects are entities in themselves, which can be moved around by the worms using weapons, or even by simply jumping into them. Many can be destroyed to interesting effect, such as the glass bottle which can be destroyed with enough damage to release a large amount of water, potentially flooding enemy worms right off the map. Typically these objects will be embedded in the ground in some way, and can be dislodged by destroying the ground around them.

Use the new physics based water to drown or wash-away opponents.

The game features a variety of modes, as usual, as well as allowing you to tailor your own game modes to suit your purposes, right down to how many of which weapon will be available and at what turn. There is a full featured map-editor, and both ranked and player matchmaking options in the multiplayer menu. On the PC the game controls well with either the keyboard and mouse, or the XBOX 360 gamepad (which it automatically maps to). The controls are nearly identical to Worms Reloaded, so if you're used to that then there will be very little adjustment time.

There have been some tweaks to familiar items. The most noticeable is a heavy nerf to the famous Ninja Rope, formerly known for it's ridiculous ability to shoot a worm into the air if used by a master. Now it functions in a more realistic manner, allowing you to swing across gaps or to reel yourself up to walls (it should be noted that it does have the new ability to allow you to jump up onto a ledge once reeled all the way in). The jet pack also handles differently; no longer will you be spurting yourself along in controlled bursts, instead you are forced to go full-burn if you expect to get anywhere, though the fuel does seem to have been adjusted to accommodate for this.

Water can be found in pockets on the map and released on unsuspecting enemies.

While the game is absolutely fantastic at what it does well, acting as an amazingly fun online party game, it fails in the same way that every other Worms game has: The single-player campaign. While there is an extensive single-player campaign, every mission boils down to a match against bots weighted either in your favor or against it (depending on how far along you are), typically with exploitable gimmicks set up in the level for skilled players to take advantage of, and new players to learn from. This serves as a reasonable training area for new players, but it grows old quickly due to the competitive nature of the game. The game is very dependent on having at least one other human to laugh with (and at).

For fans of the Worms franchise, this game is a no-brainer. It offers the same Worms gameplay with enough new features and adjustments to keep things fresh. The awesome new graphics are just icing on the cake. For new players looking for a fun online game to play with friends, I simply cannot recommend this game enough: You will never believe how much fun you and your friends will have with a Worms game. While the single-player experience is mediocre, the multiplayer gameplay is second-to-none.

Score: 4 out of 5 CoGs


Widgetcraft says, "An excellent and infinitely replayable multiplayer game; a must-have for online game nights."

*Note - Review based upon the PC version of game, using an XBOX 360 gamepad. Screenshots supplied by Team17.

[SilentScreams]

Had this pre-ordered for 3-4 weeks. Can't wait to finally get to play. Glad to hear that it's mostly good.

[Lekon]

Originally Posted by SilentScreams

Had this pre-ordered for 3-4 weeks. Can't wait to finally get to play. Glad to hear that it's mostly good.

I kept missing chances to play MP with Widget, but got a few chances to play online. The game's "decent" singleplayer, but multiplayer=awesome. Just because seeing that little bastard creep closer with a fire punch will always put you on edge.

Highly recommended if you are even remotely a fan of the series. I must attest to Widget's problem of "Killing off my own damn team" by misjudging a grenade or airstrike. Oh look, I accidentally everyone. Other team wins. As much as I'd love to gripe that's a problem with the game not giving you info, it really is a smart design decision for a game of this nature. Scorched Earth would have sucked with targeting lines and arc views.

Nice review Widgetcraft, really looking forward to getting some MP time in with other Coggers once some dust settles.

[TheKeck]

Can you still give yourself infinite ninja ropes and banana bombs because... well... that's how we rolled.

[Lekon]

Originally Posted by TheKeck

Can you still give yourself infinite ninja ropes and banana bombs because... well... that's how we rolled.

Just fired it up to check. Yup. You can make custom game settings with as much or little ammo of every weapon there is. Infinite banana bombs and ropes both worked, as did infinite sheep.


... You must have played some strange rounds, Keck.

Also, for Versus mode (local or online) You can not only make custom game settings, but save them as separate profiles. Case in point, my copy now has "Keckian" game mode, where there are infinite Banana Bombs and Ninja Ropes.

[Widgetcraft]

Back in Worms Reloaded me and my friends made a mode that was nothing but ninja ropes and baseball bats (though, we still allowed crate drops). I expect we'll do that again, though the new mechanics of the ninja rope could make that more difficult.

[Spigot]

Worms 2 still remains the high point of the series for me. I wasted almost my entire freshman year in university playing it with my housemates.

I've picked up the occasional entry in the series since then but most seem to have added too much and taken away options to the point of burying what made the games fun. The last one was a pretty good return to form though, so I'm glad that this new game has improved on it.

I'll likely snag this in a steam sale but I quite like the claymation-ish style. Very cool.

[TheKeck]

Originally Posted by Lekon

Just fired it up to check. Yup. You can make custom game settings with as much or little ammo of every weapon there is. Infinite banana bombs and ropes both worked, as did infinite sheep.


... You must have played some strange rounds, Keck.

Also, for Versus mode (local or online) You can not only make custom game settings, but save them as separate profiles. Case in point, my copy now has "Keckian" game mode, where there are infinite Banana Bombs and Ninja Ropes.

Awesomeness. It was mostly all about the ninja rope. Our play style was all about having the crazy mobility. I forgot about super sheep. Another of our favorites.

Originally Posted by Widgetcraft

Back in Worms Reloaded me and my friends made a mode that was nothing but ninja ropes and baseball bats (though, we still allowed crate drops). I expect we'll do that again, though the new mechanics of the ninja rope could make that more difficult.

New mechanics of the ninja rope?! Can you elaborate?

[MagGnome]

He mentioned those new mechanics in the review.

Good review, Widgetcraft. I've been a fan of the Worms games for a long time. I have many fond memories of playing Armageddon on the Dreamcast despite it being a wonky port, and just the other day my boyfriend fire up Armageddon on his PC and we played a round while waiting for some friends of mine to pick us up. I thought he would win for sure, but I managed to eke out a victory.

Despite my love for the series, I do wonder if the folks at Team 17 ever get tired of working on the same series year after year.

[TheKeck]

Originally Posted by MagGnome

He mentioned those new mechanics in the review.

[MagGnome]

[TheKeck]

Originally Posted by TheKeck

<-- How I felt when you pointed out that he already answered the question I asked









<-- How I felt after reading the answer

Translation

[MagGnome]

Ah, that changes things.