Thanks to Team 17 and Evolve PR for the review copy

I remember spending hours side-by-side with my friends trying to master the ninja rope, while blowing them up in the most creative ways I can discover. Seeing a remake of this for Xbox live seemed like a no-brainer purchase. I love worms, and they love me, or at least they say they do in between games, and sometimes while I dream…

Brass tacks, this game is a touch on the expensive side, but phenomenal to play. It has a sharp sense of humor, great arsenal of weapons, plenty of replay value, and solid multi-player. For those that haven’t played any games in the Worms franchise, I’ll try to describe it for you. You have a team of 4-8 worms, that you use to battle in a specific order. The goal is to kill your opponents worms with whatever pieces of the environment, or weapons at your disposal. The game play is similar to scorched earth (if you played that pc game 20ish years ago) meets a side-scrolling plat-former. That is a rough description, but truthfully for a unique title like worms, that’s about the best I have.

Basics:

This is not a hardcore action packed shooter. Worms is a zany game of chess, where your character placement is just as important as your weapon selection, and environment use. On the outside you can simply play worms for zany explosions and laughs, and if you choose to go deeper, there is plenty of depth for strategy, puzzles, and online practice.

Ledges leave you vulnerable to air-strikes, or water bombs

Soundtrack:

It’s a basic soundtrack with goofy worm voices (which you can change as you progress through the game), light music, and great explosions. Overbearing music would have ruined the point of Worms so the light music fits perfectly.

Gameplay:

I cover this lightly in the basics section, but it plays like a side-scroller meets scorched earth. Teams take turns worm by worm, selecting a weapon and firing at one another attempting to destroy the opponents team members. Of course it wouldn’t be any fun if you were simply playing on a flat surface, so you have weapons like the ninja-rope, blow-torch, gurders, and teleporters to help you navigate the landscape efficiently, or manipulate it to your advantage. Environmental hazards such as water barrels, acid containers and land mines, give another angle to attack by trying to push your opponents into the hazards. I spent one game trying to get my worm out of a pool of water, while he slowly drowned. Poor fella. You’d think that’d be all to the game play spectacle, but you’re wrong. Unlike previous games in the series, Revolution introduced classes. Now you can have 4 different types of worms that you unlock as you progress through the story. The Scout is fast and wiry, but has much less life (he can also jump farther, and get away from timed weapons better than his comrades). The Heavy is slower, but has a ton of HP and can’t be poked and prodded around as easily as his counterparts. The Scientist provides a health bonus to his team, and can produce better weapons for combat. Last but not least, the Solid is your general all around worm, decent HP, decent movement, and utilizes weapons well. This is the biggest addition to the worms series, and truthfully gives it the depth it needs. Not only do gamers get to utilize their skills with different weapons, and manipulation of the landscape to win, they now can build a team with different class set ups and use them to their advantage. This is an excellent change.

The new classes left to right: Soldier, Scientist, Heavy, Scout

Replay:

Worms is all replay value, the single player is pretty decent, and the puzzles are fun. But the real joy in this game is sitting down with friends and talking trash while you destroy them with the vast array of weapons. The entire drive for Revolution is the multi-player either on console, or on XBox Live. If you’re an unlockitall style junkie have no fear. As you progress through the various game modes you unlock costumes for your team, and of course new weapons of worm destruction. Worms is purely replay value.

Price:

It’s tough to balance the gamer and the cheap skate on this one. I love the game, but the price hurts a little bit. Coming in at 1200 Microsoft points or $14.99, I feel the game would be better suited at 800 points. Since I can’t change the price, it’s still worth picking up for anyone that needs a great competitive game to let off steam.

Summary:

Worms is a well put together fun filled strategy party. Adding online integration and a puzzle mode is simply the icing on the cake for a quality arcade title. I can only hope to see this hit mobile devices next to give me some Worms on the go. If you want a strategy game to demolish your friends online this is the game you should purchase. You won’t regret the zany combat.

Score:

• Graphics : 8
• Story : 8
• Replay : 10
• Controls : 9
• Sound: 9
• Overall:8.75