Now Playing: Worms W.M.D. + Song of The Deep

Yup, been disconnected unfortunately as I move into a new house, but that won’t stop me. I typed this up online, and have been enjoying some new games raw off the disc. That said, be aware my experience across most of these games have come without updates and I’m not sure what was rushed out with a patch later mentality or changed up later.

Worms

All I’m left to say is… it’s about damn time. You’ll have to excuse me, as I know this will end in a rant that has me getting something off my chest that nearly became it’s own article. Team17 has run worms into the ground. I don’t mean that in a way to say the series was stale, but rather they constantly flooded the market full of sub-par offerings of it with some excuse or gimmick proudly at the front instead of actual reasons or positive features. The games themselves, and the future of the franchise, felt dead and yet dragged out every year to shoot some more. On top of that, the sub-series I love (the 3D worms) haven’t been made anymore, and the HD remake screwed up in one of the basic fundamental concepts it was supposed to be offering. Ever since Worms World Party on down, the worms have been stripped of ever having concrete features one could actually expect. If it isn’t about turn based artillery strategy, and worms, it could go missing in the next game. Never mind whatever strategies, utilities, elements, features, or even basic functional support you expect, they could all disappear then reappear the next game with other missing things. It’s as if some retarded magician was running the games with an act in practice.

Worms 4 Mayhem remains one of my favorites, and offered an absurd amount of options. I would have enjoyed the amount that stayed there, but that’s where it took a sharp spiral off instead (with open warfare). The last tolerable one was Open Warfare 2 back in 2007 (W:A2 was alright as well, but hardly kept me invested). Since then there has been eight games, not counting the sloppy remasters or spin-offs like golf. Oh, and by the way it took from Worms 4 all the way up until W:A2 (2009) for Team17 to realize the entire element of fire was missing, so they used it as a part of the advertising like “Look at this new thing we got!”. It took them eight games, and I would keep checking in occasionally to see where they got things right. Shortly after W:A2 gave me feint hope, grabbed Worms Revolution to see what they did. Not even allowing me to make a damn secondary team, and essentially eliminating half the fun to local multiplayer. Ugh, this would be like if every COD played russian rullet with what game mode they’ll include. Oh, next game loses it’s campaign! Now the zombie mode, but we remembered half the campaign. Okay, now multiplayer is 2vs2 only, it’s for new comers and to test out a physics gimmick. Yeah… that’s the worms experience. ...and now we got to W.M.D.

Finally! A game I think will match Open Warfare 2, and also does some fantastic new things just like what it presented. It’s not perfect at every corner, but it’s good enough that I can sit back, look at it, and say… this is fine, great fun, and I’m glad I’ve added this to my experiences in the series. They even finally returned the ability to have 8 worms, which they hardly ever do anymore. The only things I notice are missing are (and I’m not counting completely crazy one-off features, like create-a-weapon):

• Team flags. Actually took me a while to even notice, and I guess I care that little.
• Various custom options, randomization options, which is… essentially about as easy to come and go as new and old weapons, so that’s expected and reasonable.
• Level editor. The biggest thing, but I can still do without. I still wish it was here though.
• Handicapping a team.
• Selecting sudden death styles (seems to be default flooding)

That’s practically it. Now get a load of what new things are, because it goes way beyond the art. Actually, if anything, the art is the least appealing addition. They still move and act identical, giving the exact same basic aesthetic. However everything else is pretty awesome, like:

• Vehicles! Tanks, mechs, and helicopters, as well as mountable special guns. They’re handled really well, and whoever came up with them is awesome!
• Crafting. Yes, crafting is actually in worms. Weird, but it’s done real well, and there’s a ridiculous amount to experiment with, and some fun rule-sets people can probably come up with.
• Buildings. You now have these hard layered structures that can obscure line of sight, and protect worms.
• Tutorials now double as trials, and the campaign/deathmatch function has a special set of challenges to check off. This adds to replay, and gets achievers to really rethink their levels a bit. A short face off on the latest level actually took 10 minutes because I had to complete it without using the super-convenient mountable guns.
• Challenge boss-like levels you have to unlock by finding hidden collectibles.
• You can actually play local with up to 6 teams, and no limitations on worms per team, meaning (for the first time ever) there is simultaneously full 8 worm teams and more teams allowed at one given time. You could have up to 48 worms on a map. That’s… way past any reasonable and sane 2D worm battle, but you can do it if you want. Thanks T17!

Now considering all the weapons present, the fact that each is essentially doubled or tripled with crafting, all sorts of fun gags and good voice schemes, and 90% of the options I like, then yes with the added new additions I’d say this is a fairly fantastic new entry into the series. On top of that, a lot of finer touches are present to feel like they really worked on this instead of just shoveling it out. Vehicles have their own added dialogue through a speaker like some military radio, then there’s that extra care given into making tutorials a real part of the game, and then they even finally put the foreign language speech banks at the bottom so you’re not shifting through them when looking for comedic ones (which is a first as far as I’m aware). The polish is down to near perfect, with very minor gripes like the victory dance taking away the helmet for some reason, but that’s okay because they somehow crammed 48 worm battles on this thing so you can have some stupid armageddon runs when you’re bored. Compare that to revolution and their 3D/4 remake which barely functions, and you can see they tried more. I’ve been laughing, blasting, creating, experimenting, and destroying for hours and I don’t see myself stopping soon. It’s been a while since we had a worms game this good, so… thanks for finally doing it right Team 17. Now… hopefully we won’t have to wait another 8 games for a good successor.

Song of the Deep

I was patient with this one, and with particular reason. As much as I love Insomniac, they aren’t perfect at everything even within their own familiar IPs (All4One). So I’m hesitant with a game that decides to be an indie-like metroid style game under the sea. Not a single one of those sounds up my ally, and so the game wasn’t appealing beyond a starting cheap price point, but even then… you don’t go lighting $1 bills on fire just because it’s cheap. However I still kept my eye on it, and now I’ve found time and the will to go diving into the sea with it. It’s… kind of how I expected it to be now. Way better than the core pitch of the idea, but it was made obvious by the reviews that this was more of a physics puzzler than a true metroid style game.

There’s no super convoluted color schemed door way, where you suddenly have to go half the game before you loop around back with a magic red key that opens red door to get the power that you needed back in the 2 hour mark of the game. None of that nonsense, at least for the most part. If it’s here, it’s hidden well so you’re not in that feeling. Instead the routine is you move along, and every couple of minutes you’ll hit some block you must cross using a special condition. Like waiting for a friendly creature to guide you through a timed obstacle sequence, or balancing a bomb escort to the door you need to blast. One of the weirder, but cooler things was trying to use remaining anchors in a ship graveyard to slowly pull yourself up against a strong current.

Meanwhile, there’s a lot of combat despite the type of game this is. You’ll enter areas and sometimes be swarmed with what I can only compare to a serious sam style encounter, but more for this game. No it’s not dozens running across a field at you, but you might find yourself entering a circular area and suddenly finding it filled with 3 jellies, and two spike shooting things. Then right as you dispatch them and think you’re leaving, 4 more show up, then two more go in as if they were late to the 2^nd wave party. Its a bit absurd for a game where your core combat mechanism is mashing the square to send out a little punchy arm, and the most rewarding attack is supposed to be using that arm to pick up and tediously throw an object. It’s essentially like a shooter where you have to reload after every single shot, and realize with 10 enemies in your face you’d rather just stab them. The combat design makes no sense with it’s own pacing and level design. Oh, and mercy on your poor soul if you don’t upgrade that punch attack as soon as you can afford it.

That odd observation aside, the game is still alright. However if anything, that’s just the reason why I was hesitant: It’s just alright. It’s not a huge energetic empowering joy ride, it’s not some heart-gripping soulful journey that connects with my inner-being, it’s not clever, and it’s not super compelling, it’s just… a decent game for what it is. And what it is, is a small indie-like sidescroller physics platformer project made off on the side of a team that I love for giant 3D games with complex and interesting worlds and fun goofy characters (or in the case of R1/3, a hardcore FPS). This one doesn’t even talk so much as gets narrated on. So… yeah. This is a fun game, but I’m not in a big hurry to get it all done, and it’s not entirely my thing. However for what it’s worth, I’m glad one of the founders of one of my favorite developers got to make a small passion project of theirs, and I can see where some of the heart went into it. I’m also real happy gamestop backed it hard enough to have merchandise, and then brought the giant submarine pop figure down to $5. It’s a fun enough game that I’m glad I have it and added it to my collection.