Worms Armageddon | a Review
originally published on 13/12/2024;
Hello everyone, I am the worm-like grub, G.E.M.Simov, a being that has been through so many battles that my stare is a couple of light years by now, not just a hundred yards, and I have come to tell you of the things I have seen in “Worms Armageddon”.
Simple review details - I rank games on an out of 10 basis, granting up to 3 points in 3 categories, as well as a last, single point from my own self, depending on my experience with it.
Gameplay
Worms Armageddon, henceforth WA, is a worms game. It gives the Player a team of worms, puts those worms on a destructible map and tasks the Player with killing all worms who are not part of their team.
The game does something very interesting - and that is NOT providing the Player with the means to alter the controls. Not only that, but the game does not, at all, feature any controls anywhere at all. That’s a Presentation issue, but seeing as it also affects Gameplay (due to the fact that the tutorial, which is also related to the game’s Presentation, does not feature any indications as to what buttons to press), it needs to be mentioned.
Fortunately, seeing as this game is older than many people in the world, it did come with a manual, and that manual features everything one needs to know. Unfortunately, that manual is not provided with the Steam version of WA, which makes it not only a Presentation issue, but also a Gameplay issue, because there’s no means of figuring out how to play the game (aside from lots of trial and error).
The mouse can be used to move the camera around the map, and it can also be used to open up the weapon selection menu, as well as to select weapons, but aside from that it is pretty useless, with the exception of a few weapons using it as part of their aiming.
Movement occurs by pressing either the Right or Left arrow keys, depending on whether one wants to go Right or Left. Jumping forward occurs by pressing Enter, jumping backwards occurs by pressing Enter twice(works only half the time, the rest of the time it’s just a forward jump), rapidly, and jumping upwards occurs by pressing Backspace. Unfortunately, jumping in WA is borderline useless - it does allow the Player to go over some very specific, very small gaps, but there’s almost no point to jumping backwards or jumping upwards.
However, due to the fact that movement is so severely limited, and due to the fact that WA is a 2D game, thus everything occurs on a map that features up, down, left and right, there are a lot of movement options that the Player is provided among the weapons that they have access to. Some of those allow them to go through terrain vertically, others allow them to go through terrain horizontally, some allow them to fly, some allow them to negate the effects of gravity, or to lessen them, others yet are ropes of many shapes and sizes.
Right, so the Player has access to worms. Those worms have a certain amount of health and they can move around, as established via the existence of movement controls. They can also die, and they do so when they take enough damage (from weapons and falling from great heights) or when they fall in water. Upon dying, a worm blows up, destroying a bit of terrain around themselves and doing damage to anyone within that area.
Worms can not really heal, at least not with any of the tools at their disposal, but, on occasion, a white box with a red plus on it can appear, along with another pair of boxes - one is a purplish-blue toolbox (with a red wrench on it), the other is a brown crate (containing a weapon). Having a worm walk through any of those will pick it up - in the case of the white box, the worm will be healed. In the case of the other two boxes, the Player whose worm picked the box up will get one use of a special tool or a special weapon, depending on the box picked up.
But what's that about? Uses? Depending on the gamemode (as there are a few of those) the Player's access to weapons and tools will be limited. Some might be present, but might have a finite quantity to them, meaning that they can be used once or twice, and then they cannot be used. Others might be both present and unrestricted, allowing for infinite uses. Third might be completely missing, not allowing even a single use. Boxes, be they weapon crates or toolboxes, provide 1 use for a random weapon or tool that is not unrestricted.
So, we've spoken about most things, but there are a few more to go over. Most important is the turn system. When a game of WA starts, one of the teams goes first. When that happens, one of the worms in that team gets its turn before anyone else. A worm's turn has a duration defined by the gamemode, and when that turn duration expires, a worm from another team will get a turn, and so on until every team has had a go once, at which point it will loop back to the first team, but a different one of its worms will get to have a turn.
The turn can also end prematurely if the worm takes damage or if the worm uses a tool or a weapon, though some weapons and tools allow for the worm to continue moving for up to three or five seconds after using them. Other tools immediately end the turn after being used, while others allow the worm to even use another tool or weapon following their use.
Lastly, there is wind. The wind blows in a certain direction each turn, sometimes in none, and its force can vary. The wind affects some weapons' trajectory and must be taken into account.
And that's WA. It features a number of gamemodes, though most of them are based on simply beating another worm team. There are some challenges, or puzzles, which present very particular situations that require very particular maneuvers to deal with, and those are nice brain teasers.
Unfortunately, WA feels clunky. The movement is very restricted and restrictive, the maps are very odd and almost random, presenting spots out of which the Player can either not hit anything or can not escape. The game runs quite smoothly, but as a weird consequence of that the wonkiness of the movement, mainly owed up to the fact that incredibly steep slopes can be scaled without concern, but then jumping into them sends the worm bouncing off in random directions. In general, the jumping is horrible and is no fun at all, requiring immense amounts of trial and error, as well as knowledge, to get right.
There are other silly things. The basic training, which acts as something of a tutorial, needs to be completed so that the Player can access most other gamemodes. Unfortunately, that can take upwards of 5 minutes even in the context of speed running - and failing those can mean that it does not take 5 minutes, it takes 6 or 7 and the Player must start over. Note that some of those require actual mastery of the game, and that completing all of them as fast as possible (for a silver and gold medal) unlocks more missions through which the Player can play (to get extra rewards).
In short, the game locks most of its content behind a gamemode that requires being competent at the game and barely attempts to allow the Player access to the means to exercise (because every Basic Training mission lasts around 50 seconds and, then, the Player must first go through all previous Basic Training missions). That's… Stinky.
With the issues presented, I don't think WA gets the best possible grade. I even found it hard to convince myself that, actually, it is not underwhelming. The complexity provided by the various tools and weapons is wonderful, but the steep learning curve demanded by the game, as a result of the downright unpleasant mobility of the worms, is very bothersome to overcome. 2/3
Presentation
For a game from that long ago, WA does not look bad at all - granted, the visuals are very simplistic and reminiscent of a collage, but when there are only a few moving parts this can be done. The maps that present themselves look quite interesting and are of a decently high fidelity, the worms look very… Crisp, and the weapon effects are also quite neat.
Soundwise, things are also reasonably okay. There is no music, or there is so little music that I can almost claim with confidence that there is none, and the eternal issue with Worms games persists - the worms keep chatting shit and their voices are so unbearably annoying that I want to tear my ears off.
However, this game has more issues, and they are MAJOR. The lack of a tutorial or an ability to even see the controls is a humongous problem, as stated previously, and the fact that the game's manual is not bundled with the steam copy is troublesome. Alas, that is not all.
The menus are dreadful. Every menu features a number of pictures, many of which mean nothing (apparently the question marks do not stand for tutorial, they stand for game options), and said pictures need to be hovered over (with the mouse cursor) for any text to show up. The kicker is that the text does not show up over them, it shows up at the bottom of the screen.
Navigating the menus is needlessly hard, courtesy of that and the fact that there are tiny arrows strewn nearly randomly about that redirect to other sections of the current menu. In addition, the reticle used when aiming most weapons is grotesquely huge, making aiming a bit more of a guessing game than it otherwise should be.
Overall? While it does not look bad, WA does not present itself well at all, and that hinders the Gameplay itself, which is a humongous no-no. 1/3
Story
There is absolutely no story. 0/3
Legendary Point
Does this game get the legendary point, so craved and wanted by all and none at the same time? Simply put, NO. WA does have incredible complexity, and the potential to be incredibly enjoyable, but the limitations it has placed upon the Player, mainly due to the lack of customization and configuration found in the inability to alter the controls is so off-putting that I'm unable to look at it fondly. 0/1
Conclusion
3/10. This is a Worms game. The wormsiest Worms game, frankly, but it is by no means a game I would recommend to anyone not a fan of the Worms franchise, and subsequently not a player of such games already. Maybe fans of tactical shooters like xCom could find some joy in it, but I can't d
On the wall of shame it goes, to hang there in all its imperfect glory. It could have been very good and very enjoyable, but alas.