Worms W.M.D Review

Worms W.M.D is the latest entry in the long running artillery series, the wisecracking invertebrates bring with them some new features as well as embracing their past. After 21 years of skirmishes do we really need another entry though?

For those new to the series, the Worms games are turn-based games. The aim being to blast the opposing team of worms with an assortment of insane weaponry within a short time limit, then they get to do the same until only one team remains. They also do this with quirky British humour, lots of one-liners and a not-so-stiff upper lip.

Each iteration of the series has added something new to the formula, from the introduction of online multiplayer in Worms 2, the organised play of WormNET and awesome physics in Worms Armageddon through to dabbling with taking the series into the third dimension in Worms 3D and Worms 4: Mayhem before returning the series to its 2D roots in Worms Reloaded and beyond.

Worms W.M.D brings with it three main new features, buildings, vehicles and crafting. Buildings add a new tactical layer to matches, acting as places to use as shelter, opening up as a silhouette when a worm enters but obscuring all contents to the opposing team (unless they also enter). This includes hiding UI elements such as worm names and health bars so remembering who is in a building becomes quite important.

Vehicles on the other hand are an odd addition, your intrepid invertebrate team have always had a variety of traversal options for getting around quickly, from teleporters through to jetpacks and watching a skilled Worms player get from one end of a map to the other using just the ninja rope is always a pleasure, until you get Fire Punched into the drink.

This makes vehicles seem both redundant as methods of travel and overpowered as weapons. The tank for example moves just like your worm, jumping included, and can fire six devastating heavy shells per turn. The helicopter is basically a resource-less jet-pack (the jet-pack has limited fuel so takes some skill to use) with a machine gun and the mech can hover/glide and has a strong melee attack that hits a wide area..

To top it off the vehicles also act somewhat like a shield. Absorbing some of the damage your worm would take, the trade off being when they DO finally outlive their usefulness they go with a bang. Their pros outweigh the cons though and they devalue the support items worms already have (jet-pack, parachute etc.)

Crafting is an interesting addition however, on your turn (or ideally during your opponent’s turn) you can choose to dismantle something from your weapon panel to turn into materials (or gather materials from crates that drop in a match). You can then choose to make a weapon that will be available on your next turn.

A lot of the craftable weapons are elemental variations of existing weapons, like the Angry Concrete Donkey (which adds fire to the already sizeable destructive capability of the donkey), but they all have a niche and it’s nice that you can adjust your tactics on the fly if you need to. However, I never encountered a situation where I felt it necessary to do this. More tactical options is always a good thing though!

Worms W.M.D comes with a good chunk of content, as well as the usual tutorial missions to get you acclimatised to how to play the game. There are 30 campaign missions which have a main objective along with sub-objectives for you to attain. There are also 10 challenge missions which you unlock by finding ‘Wanted’ posters in the campaign levels. You can also set up random skirmishes with the AI via the multiplayer menu.

W.M.D also has a full complement of multiplayer modes too with local multiplayer allowing hot-seat play, it also has both ranked and unranked modes with public and private hosting for the latter.

Visually Worms W.M.D is a treat, with the new landscape art and worm animation looking wonderful. The new cartoony worm designs are really emotive and are very expressive, along with the typical quirky British humour that the voice work brings it makes watching and listening to a match very entertaining.

All in all this new entry feels like an old school Worms title, more akin to Armageddon with how it feels in motion and how the moment to moment gameplay feels. This is a good thing and I really enjoyed playing  because of it, however the new elements are a little hit and miss. The vehicles just seem completely superfluous and don’t really add anything, the crafting is a great idea that is really fun to play with and adds some fun variety to weapons but doesn’t feel required. Buildings however are a simple but great addition that adds a little more strategy to proceedings.