Hey, I like worm, I like fishing
with ’em, I like diggin ’em up in the backyard with my boys and I like
watching people eat them on Fear Factor. I like them so much that I even arm
them with enough firepower to level a small country. Which is exactly what you
do in the latest Worms game, Worms 4: Mayhem by Team 17. Unlike those first
worms games, the landscape is now 3D (kind of like Worms 3D) but the game is
still the same. Four-on-four worm combat in fully destructable enviroments.
The weapons are as goofy as always and the worm-speak, a messy garbled slag of
gibberish is quite humorous. Sadly though there are some faults to this one
too.
When you first boot it up, Worms 4 has some pleasant surprises. First off, I
absolutely love the cel shading in this title, I think it’s fabulous. Why,
because due to the "Looney tunes"-esque feel of the game, a cartoon look fit
perfectly. I mean we’re talking about cute and innocent-looking worms (with
hands) walking up to one another and lighting a stick of dynamite next to an
opponenet and then running for the hills. The
explosions are fun to look at in a goofy way but fit the title like a glove.
Even the worms themselves do very cartoonish things. They fly through the air
and stick in the ground like a lawn dart. When you walk up to them they put
their hands up as if to say "bring it on" and when you put the crosshairs on
them they cower away and prepare for the double ought buck that is about to
hit them. Very clean lines, nice shading and good
level design. You would think the way that this game looks that it would be
for the kids; it is not. There is some adult humor in the game that
some parents wouldn’t want their children to see (or read). I am not one of
those parents and I did let my five-year old watch me the other night
for about a half an hour. He thought it was the funniest thing ever. Now I’m
not a parent who doesn’t curb what goes into his child’s head, but
since he can’t read all that great yet, I wasn’t worried about the subtitiles.
And, since he is huge Tom and Jerry fan, I couldn’t see much difference in the
shenanigans that were occuring in the game compared to his favorite cartoon.
But I still encourage all of you parents to decide for yourself.
"No Bill, pull the pin on the grenade and
then throw."
For how great the game looks, I
was not as impressed with the sound. Watching the cutscenes, it seemed to me
that the noises going to all of my speakers wasn’t filtering the right way.
The strange language came out fine, but then when a building blew up, the
explosion seemed too tame. I guess you could say that it felt uneven. Yes, I
checked my stereo setup and all was right with the world, which told me that
somebody dropped the ball on the sound section of the game. The k-click of a
trigger cocking was sharp but then the actual blast wasn’t as full as I would
have liked it. I don’t understand; it’s just not fair to those of us who have
spent entirely too much on our stereo equipment.
Now while I said there is basic four-on-four combat I wasn’t entirely truthful
in the games overall play. You see, if you choose story mode, then you play
through a series of missions based in the Worms world. One mission may have
you going wormo a’ wormo with another team, while others
may involve escaping a facility, or stealing equipment, blowing up supply
lines or any other number of things. The point is, Team 17 is trying to
evolve their franchise, and make it more then just a combat/strategy game;
they are pushing the envelope of worm limits. In those early games, it was
tough to get your worm to use the grappling hook over a pit of land mines. But
today’s worm is more resilient, has less fear and has been raised on a steady
diet of action movies and fried pork rinds. These little asexual buggers
aren’t afraid to sacrifice one of their own in order to complete a mission.
You can make your own team and go online and do battle. Yup, you heard me, my
team of four worrms is called "Intestinal Discord" and my troops are: Heart,
Ring, Blood and Tape. They’re out there, come try and take me out. But I
digress, the game really is best when played against other players of the
human variety. Merely log on to Xbox Live and go out there trying to pick a
fight, you won’t wait long. And since it’s turn-based combat, even those
occasional blips of lag that may occur in other games aren’t even a concern
here. I once said of the original Worms game, that it was the perfect beer-and-buddies game, since it requires some skill and strategy but is completely
wrapped around a humorous concept. Well, the statement still rings true. My
wife and I were playing last night and after she had launched an exploding
sheep at one of my team, she turned to me and told me how much she missed
playing these games. She was right, it is fun.
"Quit squiggling and stay still!"
You read it above, "turn-based combat," when you play either
the multiplayer or single-player games, you only have a finite amount of time
in which to complete your moves. In the game I was playing against my wife
last night, it was 80 seconds. Now that may seem like an eternity, but
with all the weapon crates and health that is lying around, you must move
quickly. Problem is, worms don’t really move all that quickly. So if you
are good, in one turn you can grab a health crate, squiggle to a weapon crate
and grab it, move to one of your opponents, select the shotgun, shoot one of
the worms into the water (instant death) wiggle your way to another worm and
shoot that one as well. All while navigating unfriendly terrain and avoiding
landmines.
I do have to complain about the camera angle of the chase cam, often it puts
you inside of the terrain, making avoiding landmines somewhat exceedingly
difficult. And the crosshairs on the weapons (many of them have
crosshairs/aiming reticules) are no where nearly as sensitive as it
should be. The whole aiming weapons is an unfriendly mess and I found myself
getting more then slightly ticked off.
|
Review Scoring Details for Worms 4: Mayhem |
Gameplay: 6.2
The clever things these worms can do is impressive – parachuting,
calling in airstrikes, blowing up explosive objects for an even bigger bang is
all overshadowed by a really ugly aiming system. It’s a crying shame.
Graphics: 8.4
Really nice cel-shaded graphics make you believe you are watching a
cartoon. The funny gestures the worms do, the clever cutscenes, all of it is
fun. I was surprised at the load time of this title though – pretty lengthy.
Sound: 5.9
Again, the sound element of the game is really uneven. Some
explosions sound good, others don’t. The gibberish the worms speak is quite
funny, but then some of the weapons don’t have the umphhh that is needed for
an over-the-top title like this one.
Difficulty: Medium
I flew through the game’s first half dozen missions without any problem. But
they do put these insanely difficult "target" times at the beginning of a
mission. I was never even close to the target times.
Concept: 7.5
I like the idea of Team 17 introducing new things for these little
guys to do, and the single-player missions did a bit to mix things up with the
non-combat missions. Those weapons are getting weirder and weirder, thank
goodness.
Multiplayer: 8.1
I love the multiplayer side of this game; it’s the beans! Turn-based games
aren’t really my thing unless you are talking about heavily equipped worms,
then I’m all sorts of fired up.
Overall: 7.2
A good game to have around when you have some friends over for an
evening of fun. The worms series is getting better as they go along, but they
have yet to reach that pinnacle of greatness. Maybe next time, but in the meantime, you will log hours of fun with this title should you chose to pick it
up.
