Be Excellent To Each Other

If anyone is thinking of buying this today, don't. It's bollocks. Same old shit we've been playing for the last 15 years or so. Also, the campaign is 35 missions. I'm half way through and I've been playing half an hour. The achievements are ridiculous grindy shite such as "get 200 kills with weapon X". Shit. Not worth 400 points let alone 800.

The name confused me.

Worms 2 and Worms Armageddon are two completely different games.

Not anymore!

Worms. Feeding Martyn Brown's children since 1995.

IIRC Worms Armageddon was supposed to be a cheapy add-on for Worms 2, but Team 17 decided they could get more wedges of cash by selling it as a whole new game instead. In the end, I seem to recall Worms 2 and Worms Armageddon generally being sold together at retail as a bundle anyway.

I've only spent 30 minutes or so with the 360 version up to now, but it appears to contain all of Worms 2 and Worms Armageddon in one, so the name is technically correct.

They've also added some new stuff in (bizarre weapons and suchlike) along with a shop where you can buy new things to play around with in the game itself. (You can only use in-game coins which are earned by doing the campaign, not even an option to use MS points to buy them with.)

Fortunately there's a detailed theme creator so it looks like it'll possible to create a nice slimmed down game to play multiplayer, leaving the daftest stuff out.

My research will continue now, but early doors are it's looking like a great Worms game to play with chums. (Given that it was always shit as a single player experience.)

Worms 2 had much better customisation options than Worms Armageddon. You could set explosions to destroy about a fifth of the map in one go, for stupidly fun (and short!) fights. Armageddon stripped all that out and made you play "properly" and was thus a bit rubbish.

What are the options in the 360 version like?

Indeed. They can starve for all i care. Worms was never any good (or original) to begin with. Never liked any Team 17 game besides Alien Breed, and even that doesn't get beyond the status of "enjoyable"

Worms has always been an awful single player game, but for multiplayer laughs (mainly with people you know rather than random internet characters), it's still one of the best games going.

Having it readily available and so easy to play with others on a current-gen console is highly excellent.

we played a demo at the time and quickly returned to scorched earth for our laughs. Keep in mind that in scorched earth you could edit the taunts so it got really personal.

I'm really not seeing these new weapons. I mean, it's nothing I didn't have on PC, what? 10 years ago when Armageddon came out?

You can't even edit grenade bounce as far as I can tell. Fuse length, yes, bounce, no. There are probably loads of PC features that haven't made the grade.

Could you set it so your tank would only say certain insults? Otherwise having your own tank say "Ruysan is a cunt who eats glass and kills dogs and fucks handfuls of his own shit" would be a bit demoralizing.

Sheesh man, it costs £6.80 and it's been ported over to a new platform, for a new generation of gamers, do you want it to simulate loading time off disc as well or something?

I haven't spent enough time with it yet and need to do some proper multiplayer before reaching a full conclusion, but as far as I can tell, it's pretty much all there, certainly complete enough to get some quality multiplayer games going (including the all important customisation) with the people I want to be able to play it with - the kind of people who aren't going to fuck about getting a 10 year old PC game installed, along with a mic for said PC, and some kind of VOIP software and all that crap as well.

Some people don't really seem to like Worms, and/or are put out by the fact that the XBLA incarnations are very much like the originals (I mean, seriously, what were you expecting?), which is all very well good, but in all honesty they're the precise reasons why I like them so much.

Different strokes and all that, I guess.

- especially with regards to the cost.

This is my Worms story:

I had never in my life played a Worms game (no special reason for this, I just hadn't), but a month or two back I bought a memory card wotsit for my 360, and a version was free on this. One day I thought I may as well give it a go. Anyway, I thought it was terrific fun, and have lost many hours to it, unlocking some nifty Achievements and basically just have a good old laugh with it.

It may be a 10 year old game, but this matters not a jot since it's all new to me and, you know, it's only six quid or whatever. I'll be downloading this 'new' version in the next few days, and I'm sure I'll lap it up.

That is the end of my Worms story, which I grant you wasn't hugely interesting, but still I just wanted to throw a little Worms love out there.

Still doesn't have a proper 'shopping' mode and you can't create one either. I'm a bit miffed you can't edit the standard game modes. How hard can it be just to give us WWP as it appeared fucking eight years ago?

Having said that, it is a real step up from the previous 360 iteration of the game and worth the 800 pts. I've enjoyed what I've seen so far

Doubtless that's what Team 17 will be releasing next!

(And for another 800 points, I'll probably have it as well. WWP was (is!) really good.)

Was WWP the ultimate version? Because I seem to remember after they thoroughly milked the tits off the 2D games, they released the abominable 3D version (which made judging the power of your shots all but impossible) which was hateful to play but so bright, jolly and cheerful that you desperately wanted to like it.

Yep, WWP was the last 2D version. When my mates were over a couple of weeks ago the console game we played the most was the PS1 version of WWP.

i like scorched tanks like games, and quite liked that i bought worms xbla last year for 400 points, but why should i buy a new one, all you bezzies have the old one not?

if they just made death tank offer of the week...

Why get this when the original game is 400 points on XBLA? It's hardly any different.

Oooohhh that is so not true.

There are a surprising number of nuances to the world of Worms, the original XBLA release is a decent enough starter game, but when my chum was over last weekend we were lamenting that it was missing a lot of stuff.

He's actually now getting himself a 360 purely on the strength of the fact it's now possible to buy Armageddon for it, whereas the original Worms release wasn't quite making the grade for him to make the purchase.

(He's also getting one 'cause I repeatedly club him senseless at Fight Night Round 3, so we're both going to get Round 4 and start afresh with that.)

I obviously don't care enough about Worms to have two very similar games for 1200pts. Nuances, schmuances.

Next you'll be telling me every trance record doesn't sound the same.

Myp, tomorrow.

Armageddon is my choice on PC. I was actually playing it a lot until I lost my XP install. I have World Party, but for some reason it won't run. Bummer.

Infact just had a brain spark and realised neither work in Vista. Oh joy lol.

I love Armageddon though. The weapons are awesome (concrete donkey and Indian Nuclear test are my faves) and do play it a lot in single player.

It's harder vs the computer because you can't sweet talk your friends into not attacking you and get into arguments over who has been attacking who.

You probably need to spend a little more on a decent graphics card JC.

hehe. For that you get a 7. That was actually quite original.

You sound just like Myps Mum.

Well I'm progressing through the single player campaign purely to get 'coins' to spend in the 'shop' to unlock the stuff I want available in multiplayer.

Around mission 20 it starts to get annoying, not really difficult as such, just fiddly and starting to rely a bit too much on luck. (One worm versus six CPU worms, yeah, thanks.)

As I've said, Worms was always shit against the CPU and I had no interest in doing so with this release, but forcing me to do it just to unlock a full weapons set to create a multiplayer theme that suits is VERY FUCKING ARSEY.

Still, I'll only have to do it once.

Some of the puzzle levels are quite good fun though.

Maybe I hate it because I've been playing the campaign. I'll try multiplayer tonight because, as you say, that's the good bit.

Crazy crates multiplayer is a hoot. Shame it's one level to win. It's basically Shopping mode but with each worm having a starting weapon set.

Anyone done Campaign Level 30 yet? It's doing my nut in, I just can't suss out how to do it

Honestly, I'm really stuck!