Game Review: Worms 2: Armageddon (XBLA)

[Bratman Du]

Publisher/Developer: Team 17
Release: 1st July 2009
Genre: Turn-based-strategy
Players: 1 - 4
Age Rating: ESRB: Everyone 10+
Price: 800 msp

Well we've already had Worms on XBLA. It was fine for the time, but I was not impressed by the lack of weapons and customization. This is the version we should have been given first time round.

First off, the name, Worms 2: Armageddon. There was a 'Worms 2', and there was a 'Worms: Armageddon'. But these were two seperate games. As you'd expect, 'Worms 2: Armageddon' is something of a mix of the two, with Worms 2's advanced level of customization, and Armageddon's excellent weapon selection and mix of single player tasks.

There's also some new weapons and modes, unique to this version of Worms, the poison gas will quickly fill up tunnels and whittle away the health of them tunnelling bastards, and the bunker buster will fall from the sky and burrow a bit before exploding. So clearly the player who favours hiding is in for some punishment. That's what you get for cowardice!

This is perhaps the most complete version of Worms to date. It's the purest form yet. Great sound effects and voices, plently of customization, buckets of crazy weapons (Concrete Donkey!), and simple controls.

Even after 15 years or so, the original concept of Worms still works, a 2D map, selection of weapons, turn based fun. I like to think of Worms as our generation's chess, and that, in 60 years I'll be sitting as an old man in the park, playing Worms as the ultimate test of tactics and intelligence!

You can tell a lot about someone from how they play Worms, the aformentioned tunnellers, the ninja rope experts, the insanely accurate grenade/cluster bomb throwers, who can throw one from across the map, factoring wind resistance, into your lap, and the complete bastards who block your Worms in with girders (I'm one of them).

So it's Worms, and it's got the weapons and the customization. You can't go wrong with that. It also has a few different modes on offer aside from the standard deathmatch. Forts mode has two teams stuck on largish islands in the water, with no easy way from one to the other. Jetpacks and Ninja Ropes are forbidden so basically you must besiege your opponents island and try to get him from afar with limited and time delayed weapons. It's actually more fun than I thought it would be. Then there's race mode, where you try to get through a maze like level in a shorter time than your opponent. It works pretty well too as a change of pace.

Single player wise, the AI is pretty much same as ever - pinpoint accurate with grenades, and occasionally stupid when stuck or blocked by scenery. It's a shame really, as more human behaving AI would make this game an excellent purchase for those not interested in dealing with other people. As it stands however, unless you are going to be playing this against real people, either through XBox live, or locally in a pass-the-controller match, then there isn't much on offer. The campaign, whilst it has some interesting challenges, particularly the last one (Armageddon), don't last too long, and you can complete the single player campaign in one sitting.

Given the random and seemingly infinate nature of the levels, you'd think there could have been hundreds of campaign levels, but in fact there are only 35.

But Worms has always been about the multiplayer, and in that respect, it works well. I noticed a few bugs, with maps being selected before I'd pressed a button. There was the occasionaly random loss of connection, which I'm fairly sure was the game's fault, but hasn't happened recently so maybe that's been sorted. The search+lobby system could be a bit more streamlined, but generally it works and it isn't too hard to find a game. Players XBox avatars show up between turns to laugh or cry at the performance last turn, which is a nice touch, but can slow down the action, but then, is Worms really about a fast pace anyway?

In closing, I can't really put this game down too much, I'm annoyed and feel that this is what the first Worms on XBLA should have been, but we've finally got exactly the type of game XBLA was made for. I realise there are a lot of goodies out now for XBLA and also for DLC, but if you have the points, this is a must have for any gamer who respects their history.


Worth the money for definate, but make sure you have friends to play with either locally or on Xbox Live!

Bratman.

[Sektor]

This is perhaps the most complete version of Worms to date.

Worms 2, Worms Armageddon and Worms World Party all have more options and weapons. W2:A is a good game but Team17 have yet to make a game as awesome as the decade old WA.

[beetroot bertie]

Nice review. How many MS points is it?

It sounds pretty good (an seeming improvement over the first XBLA title). I like the idea of removing jetpacks and ninja ropes from some modes as Worms always got interesting when you were limited to rockets and grenades over a distance, each player slowly tweaking the settings to try and get that bit closer with their shots.

XBLA has seen some good releases of date so it's got some tough competition going. I think I'd rather get Trials HD based on the demo and the Shadow Complex demo is excellent too.

[Bratman Du]

Worms 2, Worms Armageddon and Worms World Party all have more options and weapons. W2:A is a good game but Team17 have yet to make a game as awesome as the decade old WA.

Well of course Worms Armageddon was great, but what I mean is that this new version, is a more complete version in that it discards many of the crazy and perhaps overpowered weapons and gadgets from W:A, such as the battleaxe, bungie rope, hand gun, homing pidgeon, mad cow, old lady - a lot of these, whilst fun, were a bit ridiculous, and have been removed or replaced for W2:A.

On the other hand, the new weapons are pretty well thought out, and more than just funny, such as the posion gas and bunker buster, useful for flushing out tunnellers.

The weapon revision, along with enough modes and options to give it a fair bit of life, push it over W:A in my opinion. And as far as I know, the original W:A was only playable online on PC. Not sure if the Dreamcast version had online play.

I think the old W:A was a game of it's time, and these days, any improvement on the game can easily be overlooked. Let's face it there are simply a lot of great downloadable games these days, and while I feel this is as good as, perhaps better than W:A, it's timing was way off.

[Bratman Du]

Nice review. How many MS points is it?

It sounds pretty good (an seeming improvement over the first XBLA title). I like the idea of removing jetpacks and ninja ropes from some modes as Worms always got interesting when you were limited to rockets and grenades over a distance, each player slowly tweaking the settings to try and get that bit closer with their shots.

XBLA has seen some good releases of date so it's got some tough competition going. I think I'd rather get Trials HD based on the demo and the Shadow Complex demo is excellent too.

Sorry, edited to show it's 800 msp. Yea you can put together some nice custom games, but to use the bigger weapons in custom games, you need to unlock them with in game credits, acquired in single player. Same goes for some customization options. But you can finish the single player in no time.

I would agree that there are some other great games out there that kind of take away from this game, it is good, but Shadow Complex? Monkey Island? Trials HD? They're all pretty good too!

It's nice to finally get the XBLA Worms we deserve, but it may be too late to appeal to most people.

[Darksaviour69]

Worms: Armageddon on the dc was offline, but Worms: World Party was online