Worms WMD: What happens when you mix high explosives with worms?

TAKE garden variety worms, put them in a series of destructible environments with silly hats and voices, arm them to the teeth and you have a good time.

The classic game is back with a vengeance.

WORMS are traditionally thought of as friendly garden-dwelling creatures essential to any good compost heap.

Take garden variety worms, however, put them in a series of destructible environments with silly hats and voices, arm them to the teeth with the sort of weaponry which almost certainly contravenes several international treaties then throw in some British humour and you have the jolly good time that is the Worms franchise of video games.

Developed by Team 17, the series has been around for a long time — the first game appeared in 1995 on PC and was soon ported to various other platforms including the Amiga and most of the consoles of the era. It was a huge hit at the time and the series continues to be popular today, thanks to the humour, gameplay and generally being lots of fun.

The latest entry, Worms WMD, is released on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One and retains the 2D side-view perspective the series is well-known for, with a brighter, more cartoonier look than previously — but the artillery duel nature of the game remains and is as fun as ever.

The Worms series is also rather light on plot, but that’s never let itself get in the way of a good time with the games. For reasons which aren’t clearly elaborated on, various teams of worms are at war with each other and determined to eliminate their opponents by any means possible. Each team has a number of worms on it and they are available in a turnabout cycle, with a time limit to move about before making one attack and ending the turn.

There are dozens of weapons available, ranging from the conventional (bazookas, grenades and submachine-guns) through to the hilariously over the top, including an environmentally destructive concrete donkey statue and the fabled Holy Hand Grenade, which the player can lobbest towards enemy worms, who being naughty in thine sight, shall snuff it.

The destructive nature of the environments means the battlefield changes as the ordnance flies, with craters offering shelter where none previously existed — or worms who survived an attack now finding themselves blown out of the way of a previously ideal shot on an opponent.

One of the new changes this time around is the presence of buildings, giving the worms somewhere to shelter or use as a vantage point. There are also emplaced weapons including machineguns scattered throughout the level, along with vehicles including mechs, helicopters, tanks and rocket cars.

Worms WMD is certainly fun to play against the AI, but it really shines as a multi-player game, particularly at parties perhaps involving the sort of beverages only available to people over 18.

So fun and yet so simple.

The game goes to great lengths to avoid taking itself seriously and this sense of silly fun comes across well, meaning players are likely to have a good time coming up finding ways to take out the other team — with plenty of nailbiting moments to see if a worm has survived a direct hit, laughter as an explosion flings one across the map, or jubilation when a particularly well-placed shot takes out several of the other team in one go.

One of the particularly appealing things about the game is that everyone has access to the same equipment — some of which is only available for a very limited number of uses in each match — so victory comes down to a combination of both skill along with luck. From starting placements to how the battlefield gets reshaped to how much damage gets inflicted, there’s an element of chance letting players snatch victory from the jaws of defeat — or accidentally have a grenade rebound off an obstacle into their team. It’s a surprisingly skilful game, too, with effort required to calculate things like the trajectories of grenades, work out where bullets will go, or how some ordnance will bounce around when deployed.

The game has accessible controls; but being on console the lack of a keyboard means customising team elements takes a little longer, especially if everyone playing wants to do it.

Worms WMD is silly, it’s a lot of fun, and it doesn’t take itself seriously — all admirable qualities in a game which is well worth checking out, especially if you’ve got some friends over.

Originally published as Worms WMD: What happens when you mix high explosives with worms?