The Wonder Years: Week 11 - Worms
Posted by Owain J. Brimfield on 07.05.2007
A legendary multiplayer annelid-fest.
Welcome to the column where all gamers of a certain age come to wallow in 16-bit nostalgia. I'm your host, Owain J. Brimfield, and I'll be discussing some of the hidden gems and instant classics of gaming's golden era. Some of these games may crop up on the Wii's Virtual Console at some point, some may be consigned to the annals of history. Either way, they're worth tracking down if you missed them first time round, or replaying if you were lucky enough to catch them. Let's take a trip to:
WORMS
(Team 17, Genesis & Super NES, 1994)
Alright, so I'm cheating a little with this week's choice. Yes, Worms was originally developed as Total Wormage for the Amiga, and yes the PC iteration is by far the most popular and successful. But the console versions weren't too shabby, and in fact represent a high point for 90s PC-to-console ports. Of course, there were the obvious joypad control issues, but once you got over that you realised that you were playing one of the finest, most sheerly enjoyable games ever dreamt up by a bunch of complete wackos.
The premise is simple, endearing and quite frankly a perfect fit for a 16-bit game: teams of worms battle it out across a series of colourful 2D landscapes, armed to the teeth wait, do worms have teeth? Armed to the eyeballs then with an array of heavy munitions. It's almost the perfect original setup for a game, offbeat enough to capture the interest and immediately fun to join in and play. There's a reason why it's known as one of the multiplayer greats, and still holds up today as a fantastic experience. While more modern and graphically sophisticated sequels dominate our living rooms nowadays, the original is most definitely still the daddy.
Where it succeeds is in its simplicity; I don't want to draw too many comparisons to the later games in the franchise, but this one is important. While the newer games are chock-full of options and play modes, it can all get a mite overwhelming for those of us who don't feel the need to modify the explosive potential of each individual landmine and cluster bomb. Plug in the original, and it's a much more streamlined experience pick your team, name them as you see fit (and oh the comic potential that existed in that particular option) and away you go, straight into the magnificent 256-coloured battlefield.
Yes, the graphics are laughably basic, even by 1994 standards the Genesis and Super Nes both boasted launch games with better visuals. But therein lies the genius - Worms proves itself to be a true, timeless classic by making sure you care not one jot about the shoddy ocular goings-on, and instead focussing 100% on pure, unadulterated gameplay. And my goodness, how pure it is, easily up there with other gems of the Wonder Years as one of the shining lights of its time. I don't need to elaborate too much, as I'm sure everyone reading this has played the game, and I'm just as sure that 99.5% have loved it (the other 0.5% is composed of people who herald Japanese pachinko sims as quality gaming). Suffice it to say that the joys of blowing merry hell out a quarter of pixellated annelids trump most anything else in any gaming dimension.
Sure, there were flaws lack of a reasonable single player game, dodgy AI, and a synthetic soundtrack that was very much love/hate (thankfully I fell into the former camp) and most of these were fixed in later versions of the game. But for some reason, and I fully admit it may well by simple nostalgia, in 1994 they did not detract from the game, and in 2007 they did not detract from the game. It has aged extremely well (technical aspects aside, natch), and had Worms for some reason not been the hit it deservedly was, and spawned a franchise, would still be worth digging out today. And it really is I urge you to try it if you haven't, and replay it if you have. It may be a little hard to track down these days, but it's an eminent figure in gaming history and deserves to be remembered as such. Long live the worm!
Worms trivia
The main franchise now numbers twelve games, of which at least four are genuine all-time classics. Not a bad ratio.
An expansion pack was released for the PC version entitled Worms Reinforcements, which in turn was combined with the original to create Worms United - a game which somehow managed to be even better than the 16-bit version.
Among the other games made by Team 17 is Addiction Pinball, a fantastically good pinball sim featuring a Worms themed table.
Worms (well, Worms United technically) is number 27 in my official all-time Top 100 games.
Tangential musings
Well, someone's had to fork out for a new computer after the old one suffered a blow-out. And I mean literally large whoomp, acrid smoke and power gone to the whole house. I mean I was going to upgrade anyway, but I'd rather do it at my own discretion.
I've finally got hold of season five of Scrubs, and thankfully it's in improvement on the disappointing previous season. There doesn't seem to be much of a good story arc this time round, but Neil Flynn is still the funniest guy on the TV.
Is it just me or has TNA's booking improved recently? Well, that's not really saying much in relative terms compared to the start of the year's output, but there's hope yet.
The Americans may have Independence Day on the 4th, but here in the teeny tiny Isle of Man we have Tynwald Day on the 5th ah, the joys of a national celebration, or more importantly a nice lie-in.
And finally
As always, reader feedback and suggestions are welcome, I respond to everything so just drop me a line. Next week in "The Wonder Years" well, I'm not actually sure as the schedule was on my blown CPU, but rest assured I'll find something decent! Until then - keep it real, keep it retro.
