Worms: Reloaded

PC review by Sean Kelley on 14th October 2010

Although the worms continue to pop up on damn near every platform available, it seems like it’s been an eternity since the series graced the one platform it truly belongs on: the PC. Worms Reloaded is in fact the first PC entry in the franchise since 2004’s Worms 4: Mayhem, and the first 2D PC Worms title since World Party, nearly a decade ago. Although the series briefly dabbled – perhaps misguidedly – into the third dimension, the franchise has always shined in the second, and Reloaded is no different.

Generally speaking, if you’ve played one Worms title you’ve pretty much played them all. The variations from one entry to the next are usually minor, highlighted by the occasional new game type or mode and punctuated by the newest addition to their weapons library. Although Reloaded might initially appear to be ‘just another Worms game’, it also happens to be the single most comprehensive version of the series to date, boasting several small but noteworthy additions.

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Traditionally, Worms is a game you’d never want to be stuck playing alone and while multiplayer will always be the main appeal, Reloaded succeeds by finally offering a few genuinely entertaining single player modes. The campaign sports a variety of mission types, highlighted by the ingeniously devised puzzle stages. During these stages the player is given a worm or two, a few single use items and the instructions to either reach an exit or kill an opposing worm. The weapons or items provided are never the obvious choices for the situation at hand so the player must craft a non-traditional solution to succeed. Most of the puzzle stages are quite clever and are extremely satisfying to solve once you’ve played around a bit. Sadly these mission types are in the minority over the course of the entire campaign, but they’re totally worth the time involved in reaching them.

The other reason to play alone is the new Body Count mode, which is essentially Reloaded’s version of a survival mode. Starting out with one buff – 200hp – worm, the player has to kill as many opposing worms as possible before dying. The opposing team always has four worms, as one will spawn immediately after another perishes. The enemies start the round with a minuscule 10hp a piece but as the game plays out new worms spawn with more and more health, making it more difficult to dispatch of them quickly. The constant uphill struggle of the mode is a welcome change of pace to the traditional team based deathmatch the series is known for and the leaderboards make Body Count a mode you’ll likely want to revisit again and again.

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Although Worms Reloaded boasts some of the more memorable single player diversions yet seen in the series, they still remain that: a diversion. The multiplayer is where most of one’s time will be spent and it’s as robust and easy to use as any previous Worms title. It has a dizzying level of customization to make sure you can play the type of game most to your liking, or if you’re simply interested in fan favorite game types like Crazy Crates and BnG, Reloaded has you covered there as well.

The only cause for alarm with the multiplayer is the very rare but glaring latency problems. Usually if lag becomes an issue you’ll see a character stop and suddenly start, speeding through the actions the other player made over that pause in the action. In my own experience with Worms Reloaded, the few times I ran into any lag the opposing worm would continue to move in real time but the actual actions made by the other player wouldn’t correlate to what I saw on my own screen – basically I saw them screw up, and then found out I had a pair of dead worms that had never appeared to have been attacked.

In addition to customizing game types and rules, there is a robust map editor to let players create their own stages using one of the many level templates. Of course default stages are randomly generated to begin with, but the extra option provides an even larger selection of wacky stages to play with. Vertical maps have also been included for the first time and while the game flow is quite different, it doesn’t seem likely the map type will ever catch on as it has a fundamental problem with landscape PC displays. At this point vertical maps don’t allow you to zoom out, as there is nothing outside the single column to populate the extra screen space, which makes it damn near impossible to align any sort of shot that isn’t primarily horizontal.

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Given the high level of customization found in the game, it’s a little disconcerting that custom levels occasionally render improperly online. Areas that are supposed to have land masses will show up as the shadowy artwork that backs every stage, and while it has no tangible effect on gameplay it can certainly be distracting. It’s also surprising a game that seems so poised to be driven by player created maps and game types has a generally lackluster set of local stat tracking and leaderboards. As zany as the franchise has been, it seems like a missed opportunity to not be tracking arbitrary statistics like super sheep miles flown.

Although Worms Reloaded has its share of rare but notable problems, it is without a doubt the pinnacle of the franchise, the single best and most complete version of Worms to date. The level of customization is staggering and the game’s timeless artillery gameplay is just as fun as it was fifteen years ago. Hopefully the developers at Team 17 will give the game a chance to breathe and find an audience before releasing yet another iteration to be filed in the worms’ seemingly endless march towards gaming oblivion.

And for the record, the new weapon of choice is the Buffalo of Lies.

Nine out of ten

Pros

Surprisingly decent single player offerings
Dizzying level of customization
Same old classic artillery gameplay

Cons

Rare game breaking lag
Levels occasionally don’t render properly
Disappointingly sparse leaderboards and stat tracking

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About the author

Sean Kelley is an Associate Editor at Thunderbolt, having joined in April 2008. See more of his work at Negative Press and check out his web comic, Roy’s Boys. Get in touch on Twitter @_seankelley.

Comments

REVIEWER69
8th August 2011

I gotta say, you must have been paid by Team 17 to write this review or never have played any Worms games before. You do gamers a huge disservice with this review as a video game reviewer. This port not even as good as Worms 2, has its content being released a la carte to maximize its profits in spite of being bad and older versions of the game, specifically Armageddon, are incomparably better. I’m calling bullcrap on this review and betting you didn’t play Worms, Worms 2, Worms Armageddon, Worms World Party. You name it, you didn’t play it. That or you were bought off. Look at the user reviews and see all the 0s handed out by people who had played previous versions of Worms (including mine). You have no integrity and you should be disgusted by this review. At the very least, you should open up Worms Armageddon and notice what lazy piece of production crap Team 17 produced for release on Steam.

To add insult to injury, Mac and PC players can’t even play with each other. Aside from the huge step back taken in gameplay and UI, it’s not even using Steam to make the game playable between operating systems.
Sean
8th August 2011

I’ve played Worms, Armageddon, World Party, Worms 3D and Worms PSN, all in addition to Reloaded. Hell, before Worms, I was playing Scorched Earth off a 3.5 floppy in my middle school’s science lab; don’t question my familiarity with the series, or genre.

Whether or not Team 17 is maximizing their profits is irrelevant to whether the base game is any good or not - which it is. And on that note, the base game is $20, whereas Worms: Armageddon was a $50 retail product.

Also, do your own research. Reloaded has a Metascore of 79, so apparently I’m not the only critic who liked it. Or, at the very least, make sure to accuse everyone else of being paid off too ;)
Stew
8th August 2011

Reviewer69 what’s the matter bro, you mad?
REVIEWER69
8th August 2011

Metascore of 79, first is off, isn’t good. Second, the majority of critic reviews were extremely bland, such as this one. Third, I didn’t bring up the profits things because I think they shouldn’t make max money; I did because you gave a 90 to a bad game.

If you’re familiar with the series, I’m finding it incredible that you, or anyone, gave this game a positive score. And the user scores, FYI, if you read them, the majority of positive scores were people who had never played the Worms series before. Most of the “veteran” scores were anywhere from 0 to 5 out of 10.

The UI alone of the game is a calamity. You played Armageddon. You know the game can be edited, teams matched up, terrain put together and game style set in one screen. Weapons are modified in another. You also know that they modified the physics from 2 and Arma, even though they kept the graphics. You also know that they modified weapons, and some of that can’t be edited now. In other words, every conceivable player, and I’ve spoken to several European former “pro” ninja rope champs (of the German variety, if you knew the scene, so you have an idea of who I’ve spoke to), and their reaction is total frustration and disgust at this port.

But unless the video game reviewers do their job and don’t hand out 90s to buggy, hastily designed ports, they’re going to foist crap like Reloaded on us. How could you give a 90 to a game that has worse gameplay, by every measure (setup, customization, physics) than the two predecessors it most resembles? I still would call on your integrity on this one: either you made a mistake, or you had reason not to give this game the score it deserved. No Worms vet (and yeah, I was one of those people who played every game and played tourney-level Armageddon with the best of them) would ever give this game their blessing. And the casual gamer who also played every worms, if you look at the user scores, hasn’t either.

You played Scorched Earth? Then do video game legacy right. Don’t let this piece of trash become the next step in Worms. Because all you’re doing is letting a buggy port that was meant to be minced up and sold a la carte be portrayed as the best in the Worms series. And man, it’s not. It’s unbelievable that you said or suggested that was the case. I don’t have anything against companies making money off DLC, but why would you allow a company to sell an inferior product piecemeal to rip off gamers?
Sean
8th August 2011

I read several of the user scores and I saw several people mention bugs and physics issues, especially compared to previous Worms titles, but I didn’t have these issues. Although I’ve played most of the games in the series and both Armageddon and World Party extensively, I won’t pretend to know all the subtle minutia in physics from one Worms game to the next. Reloaded felt right to me, and thus I had a very positive experience with it.

As for the piece meal schtick, I actually agree what Team 17 is doing is bull shit, selling all of the individual packs. But, when I reviewed the game, those packs didn’t exist and no one knew what their DLC plans were. If I were to re-review the game now, my opinion might reflect what Team 17 is doing, but reviews aren’t built to be updated on a whim.

I appreciate your opinion but I simply disagree about Reloaded. My one review isn’t going to validate the game as the best Worms title or the worst - your dollars will. Buy accordingly.
REVIEWER69
8th August 2011

I agree with your final post. But you know what? Your 90 is the first review that appears when you click on the game’s metascore. And to give the game a far review, consumers have to purchase it in the first place. A great deal of Mac users found out, for example, that their Worms Reloaded couldn’t play with PC users after they purchased it, even though on the purchase screen it shows the Windows + Apple icon. I guess my point, if there can be one that encompasses my problem with your review and the game being reviewed, is that its advertising is dishonest. The DLC revealed that, as you said.

More importantly, it’s not a question of minutia whether the game lives up to the standards of past Worms. The physics changes were major, and STILL buggy (use a ninja rope for exhibit A). It’s a half-baked product. I’m just imploring you to have a more critical eye as a reviewer. Because now there’s a 90 hanging on the top of the metascore list, when the first thing that buyers should see is that, at very least, the reviews of this game were polarized.