Worms 3D review (PS2)

Who knew that back in 1995, when Worms was first released to the public, it would be such a massive hit? Equally, who cares when the series is still going strong with this, the next generation of Worms, finally bringing it into the third dimension. For those who don’t know, Worms was based on the cleverly addictive Tank, which placed two tanks on opposite sides of some terrain and asked you to adjust the power and angle of your gunfire to destroy the opponent in a turn based dinosaur of entertainment.

Worms took it a step further, allowing teams of worms instead of tanks, many more weapons and a lot more manoeuvrability. Sporting a random terrain generator and chipmunk-esque voices, I have fond memories of challenging my friends and a host of AI opponents with the teams that I’d made myself. Upgrades to the series added better graphics, more varied weaponry and tweaks galore. Worms 3D has one major significant enhancement, and if you’ve read the title, you’ll already know what it is - my initial feelings though were that it would never work.

Benefits of 2D

Amazingly, it does work. The only downside to 3D is that aiming has become slightly more complex, but using a first person and overhead view it doesn’t take long to get used to exactly how much power to use. The game is played in much the same way as before, with each team taking turns to move one of their worms around and each given one use of any of their weapons to try and annihilate everyone else. Weapons are sometimes given in limited amounts and can vary from the plain bazooka fire to the plain insane old woman who traverses the land emitting poisonous gas and finally explodes after a set time. And there are a lot of weapons, each with their own best time to use them. Naturally, worms can be killed by taking them to zero health or by knocking them off the land into the water.

Destructible terrain was one of the great benefits of using 2D, since creating the effect in 3D is much more difficult, not to mention the simple controls working very well in 2D, with the ninja rope in particular being the kind of thing that doesn’t transfer very well to 3D. Thankfully destructible terrain is still with us, although my worries about the ninja rope have been proved valid, but well worth it for the extra dimension. Utilities such as the ninja rope and teleport give you an alternative to harming your foes in order to improve your own standing, but to basically give your opponents’ a free turn you’d better be sure you’re doing the right thing.

Living up to the standard

Gameplay wise, there is certainly no fault with rehashing the relentlessly successful Worms formula with more features and while it won’t win any awards for originality, the game itself is superbly addictive and fun, perhaps since the basis of it is its simplicity. Equally, you could go on playing this game forever (or at least until the next in the series undoubtedly arrives), constantly tweaking the various features on offer. Not to mention the random terrain generator that will create any number of new areas to fight in and while these seem pretty simplistic, there are unlockable levels to play on by completing certain single player levels.

Tweaks can come, for example, in the form of making worms specialists, meaning certain worms have certain weapons or simply by making all explosions extra powerful. Perhaps the biggest and most noticeable change in the game (except for the obvious one) is that the explosions don’t seem to have as much power as they used to, and while this is frustrating if you’re used to old school wormage, it also seems clear that only a smaller dent in the landscape is left with many of the standard weapons. The result of this is that much of the fighting will revolve around knocking worms into the water rather than sapping their energy.

Quirky worms

If you do manage to kill a worm without dunking him in the drink (with mines and explosive barrels around it’s not as difficult as it seems) they’ll often have an interesting and imaginative death animation to watch, although sometimes they do seem to get rather repetitive and long winded in extended games. The voice packs provided for use with your team (which can be named to your specifications) are all very well performed and individual, though using the PS2 version of the game certainly means that you miss out on being able to record and add your own voices which is a sad but unavoidable loss for playing a console version.

Musically I was disappointed that the main title theme didn’t use the ‘worms’ theme that I’d become so used to through other games, but fortunately it is ‘touched upon’ in some of the ambient tracks during gameplay. Interestingly, the title theme seems like it shared a style with Japanese kids TV shows, reconfirmed by the menu style and general graphical beauty. Certainly I never encountered slowdown of any note, aside from when terrain was being randomly generated - which also seemed to skip the music a little too.

Sounds like a bug to me

Occasionally during the game sound effects seem to go into a constant loop which can become very frustrating, but always curable by hitting the start menu to pause the game and again to unpause it. While this isn’t a show stopping bug it certainly angered me during some of the more frustrating single player missions. It’s true to say that the genius of Worms 3D comes out during multiplayer battles with friends, but the single player campaign of various challenges and tasks is formidable and always has very impressive maps that can be unlocked for use in multiplayer if you play well.

These tasks and missions begin with a war themed map whereby you seem to be storming a base after boating onto the island. Simply wiping out the weaker and outnumbered enemy team will give you victory, but the style in which it is presented, the emotions conveyed by each worm at various stages and the satisfaction of aiming a mortar perfectly brings the excellence of multiplayer right back into single player. There is a large amount of variety in the missions too, some of which don’t even have enemy worms to kill, just tasks to fulfil such as digging for treasure (in graves with grenades) and collecting crates using a jetpack.

Rewarding good worms

Another welcome return comes in the form of FMV sequences after many of the single player levels, showing amusing scenes from the world of worms that prove that the game is never meant to be taken too seriously. As great as these are, there don’t seem to be many of them at all and those that there are have plenty of repetitions. Unlocking new content always seems to play the same video sequence, with perhaps a slightly different end (for example a different weapon being used for the final shot) that really lends itself to skipping each sequence when it begins. Still, better repetitive movies than no movies.

When considering a score for Worms 3D I felt it was important to reflect the excellence of the game, but while a complete revamp has of the gameplay hasn’t been instigated along with the third dimension a bit more originality would’ve been nice. But for now the game is still highly entertaining, so perhaps originality can wait for the next sequel. Newcomers and old hands alike, Worms 3D will sap your free time and hopefully that of your friends, and you’ll enjoy every minute of it.