Worms 3D (PAL) Review

Developer	Team 17
Publisher	Sega Europe
Genre	Strategy

It’s rare to find a gamer that hasn’t at least heard of the Worms series. These classic strategy games rank right up there with Mario Kart and Bomberman as far as multiplayer fun goes. The premise is simple: use your squad of worms to destroy all the enemy worms with a variety of high-powered and often comical weaponry. While the previous games have all confined those cute little annelids in two dimensions, Worms 3D, as the title implies, marks their first venture into the third dimension. Many games have trouble with this transition, and Worms does suffer a few casualties in the process. Despite this, Team 17 has managed to craft a wonderfully entertaining game- even if it does fall short of its two-dimensional predecessors.

Gameplay - For the handful of gamers out there unfamiliar with Worms, go out and buy a copy of Worms World Party right now. Bring friends. Ok, seriously though, it’s a turn-based battle strategy game. Each player assumes command of a group of worms (1-6 in this version) in a simple last-man-standing deathmatch. Worms are defeated by either falling into the water or having their health reduced to zero. Smashing enemy worms is a blast, thanks to the wide selection of weapons available. Each has different effects, and is fired differently. For example, when firing the bazooka, one needs to account for how far away the target is, as well as the strength and direction of the wind. The shotgun, on the other hand, is a simple point and shoot affair. Being a good worms player means knowing which weapon is right for the situation. Few weapons are actually better than the others, although there are a few "super" weapons, it mostly just comes down to how they are used.

Part of what makes Worms so enjoyable is the fact that a really great plan, which seems almost fool-proof, can somehow go horribly wrong. Watching a buddy’s holy hand-grenade just barely miss the target, then ricochet off a wall and bounce all the way down a hill, landing right at his feet is simply hilarious. Moments like this can happen frequently in Worms, even with experienced players. That isn’t to say that Worms is random and boils down to luck; chances are, if something disastrous like that happens to you, it’s because your aim was off or your plan of attack was unrealistic.

The number of options that can be tweaked for each round is pretty remarkable. One can choose what weapons are available and in what quantities, as well as at what point in the match they become usable. The fuse length for land mines can be set, as well as how often weapon crates appear on the landscape (plus how likely each weapon is to appear within one.). Players can choose what happens when the clock runs out, and even add special modifiers like Super Explosions (which causes all explosive weapons to do more damage and cause bigger explosions). All of these tweaks can be saved as custom battle Schemes, and there are also a number of pre-made Schemes to choose from.

Some Notes For Longtime Worms Fans

- Darksiders will have to find a new strategy. Many of the Darkside tools are absent in Worms 3D. - The Ninja Rope is far less effective in this version. Defying gravity is oddly difficult. - The AI Worms no longer take forever to think. - There are no more "cavern" style levels. -Each team can now have a different speech bank. - There is now a front flip, in addition to the classic backflip. - There aren’t many new weapons, but the new ones are lots of fun. The Sticky Bomb, for example, is basically a grenade that sticks to the first thing it hits.

There are a decent number of pre-made maps to play on, featuring lots of interesting structures and objects. Most of them are very well designed, providing nice sources of cover and a good variety of high and low ground. Once one tires of those, there are the randomly generated maps. These are much less interesting than the pre-made ones, but do help keep the game fresh. There are all sorts of things to tweak on the random maps, such as how much land there is and how many objects or bridges will appear. While the random maps were a great benefit in the 2D versions, the ones that can be made here seem tame in comparison. The best thing about the terrain in Worms, though, is the fact that it’s all destructible (unless you turn destructible terrain off). That one cowardly worm taking cover behind that building won’t have much of a building after a few bazooka shells.

There is a single player game, although the joy of Worms is certainly the multiplayer. The campaign mode is fairly short, but enjoyable while it lasts. Most missions involve killing all the other worms, but there are usually some special requirements that make it interesting. There’s quite a bit to unlock in the campaign, too, which makes it worth playing through. After each completed mission, the game gives you a trophy- gold, silver or bronze. To unlock the good stuff, like extra maps and weapons, you’ll need lots of golds. There is a challenge mode as well, complete with high score lists, which ask the player to do things like hit a bunch of targets with only the shotgun.

Getting a good view of the action in Worms 3D can occasionally be challenging. There are three camera modes, and two of them work near perfectly. The standard third person camera allows the player to see his surroundings and move around with ease, and the first person view is great for aiming a number of weapons. The trouble comes in with the blimp view. This is a bird’s eye view of the whole arena, which is something that Worms 3D definitely needs. The problem with it, though, is that it cannot be zoomed in. Finding enemy worms is easy, thanks to the brightly colored names, but getting a good view of the nearby terrain is difficult. Perhaps the binoculars are meant to be a solution to this. They provide a zooming first-person view, but it’s hard to see over cliffs with that. This by no means ruins the game, but it does make long-distance attacks more difficult than they should be.

Okay, it’s nitpicking time. When choosing exactly where to place your worms, as opposed to having the game randomly spread them out across the landscape, each worm placement counts as an actual turn. What this means is that the round time is already ticking, and some weapons that only become usable after a certain number of turns will already be unlocked by the time the actual game begins. Also, there is no option to play with multiple controllers. Better hook up a Wave Bird, because that single controller wire will get all tangled up passing back and forth with three other people. Finally, it really shouldn’t be necessary that players completely click down the L or R button for it to register, but it is.

Graphics - Visually, Worms 3D is simple but effective. Why wasn’t this cel-shaded, considering the visual style of past Worms titles? In any case, there aren’t many special effects here, and the polygon counts are fairly low. However, there is no popup whatsoever, which is important when aiming bazooka fire all the way across the map. The framerate is rock-solid, and only skips during massive explosions, at which point control is out of the player’s hands anyway. The classic Worms humor is inherent in all the worms’ animations. When a blast nearly misses a worm, they will sometimes wipe their brow and a perfectly placed shot will often result in a big teethy grin. They have amusing idle animations as well, such as when they take off their eyebrows and place them below their "nose" like a mustache.

Sound - The sound effects are equally humorous, with dozens of one-liners. Worms scream "Run away!!" when a grenade lands near them, and taunt the enemy with a "You missed!" if it was a close shot. There are a number of different speech banks to choose from, ranging from Vikings to the Irish- what your worms say depends on the chosen speech bank. The weapon fire is effective enough, for a cartoon-styled game, but the music is used scarcely outside of the setup screens. What music there is works well, especially the classic Worms themes remixed.

Overall Value - In the end, Worms 3D is just that: Worms in 3D. Team 17 has taken almost all of what made the original games fun and plopped it into 3D. It isn’t quite as much fun as the two-dimensional games, but Worms 3D is certainly the best strategy title on the GameCube. However, solo gamers should probably just give this one a rental when it hits the US in a few months. There just isn’t enough single-player content here to warrant a purchase. Gamers looking for a new multiplayer addiction need look no further, though- Worms 3D is pure multiplayer goodness. Importing: With a FreeLoader, importing Worms 3D is easy. All of the text and voice is in English, naturally. I’ve had no trouble playing this or any other PAL game on my NTCS TV, so importing is something to consider for the impatient. If importing from Europe to the US, I recommend Gameplay.co.uk.

Importing: With a FreeLoader, importing Worms 3D is easy. All of the text and voice is in English, naturally. I’ve had no trouble playing this or any other PAL game on my NTCS TV, so importing is something to consider for the impatient. If importing from Europe to the US, I recommend Gameplay.co.uk.