Worms

Worms by Team 17, published by Telegames
Players: 1-16(using 1 joypad)
Levels: 4 billion(?)
Procontroller: Sort of
YOR: May 15, 1998
Price: Around $70-$80, if you can find it
The Gist:
Worms requires great thought, strategy and elements of sheer outrageous fortune within an almost infinite range of playing possibilities. This game has tons of weapon power-ups (bazookas, cluster bombs, and homing missiles), and the most brutal worm battalions ever to infest a game screen!

Teams take turns to bombard the enemy with whatever weapon they feel is likely to reap the most reward. The last team remaining wins the game.

Many people are familiar with Worms, which is considered a classic. If you've never played it before, then you're missing out on loads of fun! If you've ever played the game called Scorched Earth, then it's sort of like that, except it's much better. You get four worms(your team) and you can play up to three other teams(also consisting of four worms)which can be computer controlled(poor, OK, or good) or human controlled. The computer's AI is pretty good, but it's always funner to mercilessly push the last worm on your friend's team off a cliff into the water below, wuhahaha!

There are tons, and TONS or different landscapes! I believe they said the Jag version has about 4 billion or so. There are several different styles of landscapes, which include: Ice, desert, beach, junkyard, hell, forest, and martian. There are a couple of others I think, but I can't recall what they are. Also, the Jag version is supposed to have 70's psychedelic levels, although I've never found one. If there are, they must be hidden.
Anyways, you can randomly chose a landscape, or enter a number/word to chose one. All landscapes have water or something liquid at the bottom(or fire =), so you need to watch out, because if you land in it, your an ex-worm.

There's lots of weapons/items to use. You can chose how many of each weapon/item everyone gets if you want to, although I prefer the games defaults. You can chose from bazookas, homing missles, grenades, cluster bombs, dynamite, uzis, shotguns, mines, airstikes, or even a fire punch or dragonball, to use against your foes. For items, you have a blowtorch or pnumatic drill(for digging purposes), ninja rope(get to those normally unaccessible areas), bungee cord, girders(build bridges or barriers), and the transporter. You can also push a worm(say, if they're next to a cliff) or kamikaze if you're desparete. Occasionally, you'll get a weapons drop, which can contain extra ammo for a particular weapon, or a special weapon(ex. banana bombs, sheep, chaingun). All this good stuff is what makes the game so fun because there's so many different ways to kill your enemies!

Graphically, the Jag version looks better than the PC version. The PC as I recall wasn't a very high res game, but the Jag version is so high res that there's no pixellation, anywhere. In fact, you don't see that jagged stairs effect either on diagnol lines. But, as we all know, Worms wasn't created to push the limits of any system, and obvioulsy doesn't truly push the Jag. It's not supposed to though, so it really doesn't matter. There are 7 layers of parallax scrolling, and the animations are great as well.

Soundwise, Worms has a lot to offer in the way of speech. The little worms have plenty of hilarious antics to say (and they always are said at the right moment). After you hit a worm, it'll curse you(not swear, but yell things like "I'll get you!", or "Revenge!", or plenty of other stuff), or if you hit your own worm, they'll get mad at you (saying stuff like "Should we talk?"). The strange thing is though, is that you have to have the volume on your TV almost to max to hear either the occasional background music or the speech. It's a small annoyance, but it's an annoyance nonetheless.

Well, as many of you know, if you didn't get Worms when it came out, you're basically screwed until Telegames gets off their butts and does that 2nd run. Yeah, I maybe harsh to them, but they don't need to take for friggin' long to get the releases out. I don't have to worry obviously since I already got my copy the day it came out, but I know many Jag fans out there really want this game. It's worth it though, as this is one of the funnest games out there, and it fits perfectly in with the Jaguar's collection of games. If you ever have the opportunity to get Worms for the Jaguar, do not pass it up! I guarentee you'll regret it if you do...
The Ratings!

GRAPHICS- C+ - Nothing spectacular, but it is high res. Good animation too...

Sound/Music- B- - The speech is awesome, but everything's too quiet, and the music is OK.

Control- A++ - It's perfect. The Jag's keypad is also a plus.

Fun Factor- A++ - It's Worms, it's additicing, and it's insanely fun! I actually spent one night playing it with my friends for about 8 hrs.! Sure, I regret the lack of sleep, but hey, it was fun!

By Adam Pratt 1