WA
Worms

by

Team 17

graphic line

Click to
view advertisers
Click on image to visit site

Ten years ago or more, there was a game called Artillery which consisted of two players destroying each other's castle while firing over one or more mountains. The graphics for the mountains were made up of a continuous line and was nothing special. To hit your opponent you had to fire your weapon by setting the trajectory's angle, firing power, and take into consideration any wind that may be blowing. The game was simple and yet fun to play. Team 17 has taken the game's concept and spruced it up with Lemmings style graphics supplying us with a new game called Worms.

In Worms, the concept of the game remains the same, however instead of having a castle to demolish and protect, you'll have teams of four worms to exterminate. Up to sixteen players can play using four teams of four worms each. Playing is turned based allowing each worm to make their move and bombard their opponent with one of the 14 different weapons. This continues until all except one team of worms is left standing and is declared the winner. To win a match you'll require two wins, which often involves playing the game two or three times. This, however, can be changed in the options menu. At the end of each match the Worm Rankings will be displayed showing who was the Best Shot, Most Violent, Worm of the Match, and Most Useless.

The game options will allow you to customize the game to how you want it. You can change the Move Time (default is 60 seconds for a player to make their move) from 10 second to unlimited; the number of rounds required to win between one or two; round Time from 5 mins to infinite, and once the round time is up, the worms play "Sudden Death", which sets all the remaining worms' life points to 1; Worm Placing between random or in groups; number of land mines from one to eight; automatic action replay on or off which will replay the good wipe out shots that are performed or that win the game; and many others options. You'll also be able to set how many items of each weapon players should have and whether they have an unlimited supply or not.

At the beginning of each match, an animated 3D scene of the worms will be shown. The worms are much larger in these animations, and will give you a sense of how the worms are treating each other out there on those landscapes. The animated sequences are also not very detailed, but the scenes are funny to watch. You will see a worm receiving a grenade in his hand and trying to pass it on to the worm next to him before it's too late. As you can guess, the grenade goes off in their hands.

Each worm has a certain amount of life points that must be eliminated to kill them off, unless they fall into the water or off the screen which will also kill them. The default setting is 100 life points, but you can change this to be anything between 75-500. The more points a worm has, the harder it will be to eliminate them. This is extremely useful when playing an advanced player against a novice player. If the game is too easy for the advanced player, the game can be set up to make it easier for the novice person to kill off the advanced players worms, and the novice player's worms can be much harder to kill. When playing against the computer, you'll also be able to set the computers skill to good, ok, and poor.

All worm movements are done with the arrow keys on the keyboard as well as jumping and shooting your weapon. The mouse is used to scroll around on the screen and to select targets.

The weapons at your disposal range from a shotgun, fire punch, and bazooka, to airstrikes, cluster bombs and exploding sheep. Selecting the angle for which you will fire your weapon, taking the wind's speed and direction into consideration, and holding down the space bar until your desired power level for projecting your shot is reached is how the majority of your weapons are used. Other weapons such as dynamite and landmines are utilized by dropping them near your opponent and then running for your life. This can be dangerous if you happen to make a wrong move and end up being too close to the explosion when it happens, otherwise it can be very effective. Some weapons such as homing missiles are limited and can only be replenished through the random weapon delivery air drops. These appear as wooden crates and can only be pick up by the current player. Inside you'll find extra weapons such as banana bombs, sheep, dynamite, etc.

A diverse set of randomly generated landscapes are available to choose from with over four billion possibilities. Ten different terrains are obtainable: Arctic, Hades/Hell, Forest, Mars, Desert, Candy, Alien, Tropics/Jungle, Junk/Scrapyard, and Beach. Some of them are slippery, have low gravitational fields, and are all covered with landmines. The landscapes are made up of islands with very dangerous cliffs often with water, fire, or even chocolate surrounding them. Sometimes a bridge will join two islands together, and many unusual objects will be found scattered throughout the land. Each different landscape comes with its own code for future reference so that it can easily be recalled. You can also type in names and words that will always produce the same landscape for that name or word.

The 2D side-scrolling graphics of the game are wide, but nothing exceptional and do not contain very many details. There are two or three scenery backgrounds in the distance that provide a feel of distance perception. The worms themselves are very small little pink creatures holding the weapon you have chosen. They will sometimes wear a construction hat when you tell them to build something, or pull out their communicator for transporting.

Besides all the weapons you have at your disposal, your worms can jump, bungee jump, climb using a Ninja Rope, dig tunnels with the blowtorch or drill, build bridges with the girders, and even teleport with your communicator. Building tunnels can provide for nice hiding places, but be careful as your enemy can always drop a stick of dynamite down your tunnel or even send exploding sheep in after you. Exploding sheep will run towards your enemy and detonate at your command.

There are many sound effects within the game for all the different types of weapons and explosions. The whistling of a airstrike, the cry from Hades, or an evil laugh are just some of the sounds you'll hear. The worms will also speak to you in a very high pitched voice (because they are so small). For instance, when they succeed in shooting someone, you may hear either "I got him" or "revenge". When someone is being attacked they'll say things like "You'll regret that" and "just you wait". If you do something stupid to worm, like blow up your worm, it will call you "stupid". All the sound effect are very well done. Music is played off the CD and furnishes a gloomy atmosphere where you can feel that your worm's life is in danger.

The game was originally released without modem or network play. However, a patch has been released that allows just that. Players will now be able to fight against their friends from across town or around the world. Having tested the network mode within Windows 95, the game played well but would temporarily freeze up for a second before continuing in the game. This had the effect of causing a move or shot to be badly performed because the computer paused for a second without the user realizing it.

Conclusion:

Worms is a very addicting game where bombarding your opponent is your main goal. I would think that anyhow who has enjoyed the Lemmings games from Psygnosis would certainly like playing worms. If you want to give the game a try, check out the demo.

Visit the Worms Web Site

Written by Trevor Bennicke

Click here for screen shots.

System Requirements:

IBM-PC compatible computer with a 486DX-33 Mhz CPU or higher,
Min 8Mb memory,
Dos 5.0 or higher,
Hard drive required with at least 1Mb free,
Double speed CD-ROM drive or faster,
VGA video card, Microsoft compatible mouse.

Sound Blaster compatible sound card.

Developers

Team 17 Software Ltd.,
Longlands House,
Wakefield Road,
Ossett, West Yorks., WF5 9JS,
England.

Technical support:+44-(0)1924-271637
Fax support:+44-(0)1924-267658

Internet Support: Team 17 Technical Support
Web site: Team 17

Publishers

In North America:

Ocean of America, Inc.,
1870 Little Orchard St,
San Jose, CA 95152.

Internet Support: Ocean of America Technical Support
Web site: Ocean of America

In Europe:

In UK:

Ocean Software Ltd.,
2 Castle St,
Castlefield, Manchester M3 4LZ.

Technical support:+44-(0)161-839-0999
Fax support:+44-(0)161-839-0997

Web site: Ocean Software UK

In France:

Ocean Software France,
25 Boulevard Berthier,
75017 Paris.

Technical support:+33-(1)4053-0348

Ratings:

Graphics:79%
Sound:85%
Music:85%
Gameplay:90%
Interest:90%
Overall:86%

graphic line

HOMEPAGE ISSUES
[Homepage][Back issues]

All content Copyright © 1994, 1995, 1996 Coming Soon Magazine, Inc. All Rights reserved.