[Review] Worms 2

REVIEW # 00000000 00101101

Once upon a time there were some small worms who got very very annoyed and decided to go to arms…

Worms 2 is the second chapter of the long lasting saga began in 1995 with Worms. The three years passed from the first release made possible a great graphics enhancement with a brighter colot palette. The gameplay is the same but the audio and video improvement and a bigger weapon arsenal make Worms 2 one of the best games of the franchise, at least in the 2D saga. This is probably the best game ever made by Team 17, even if in the pase they produced great gems such as Alien Breed and Superfrog.

My heart says…

I have fond memories of Worms 2. I remember it was the winter of ’99 and after a whole summer spent together with my friends playing soccer and going to the sea we were quite sad because we didn’t have too much to do. But one of us, I don’t remember who, one day came in with his Worms 2 CD and we start playing. After that day we spent the whole winter until the spring  on this game, creating stupid teams with more stupid names and featuring even more stupid worm names (most of them were people from my town, former soccer players and – why not- women hot as f**k). I think that if that we only had the idea to partecipate to a national  tournament we could have smashed most of the teams. We reached a point when we were able to aim our guns (there’s no double meaning in this) almost without taking care of the wind. A great game that cemented up our friendship

Splash screen

Graphics

Since Worms is a 2D game made in the era of 3D, the graphics are very detailed and accurated. The cartoonish style and the colourful visuals are one of the best feature of the game and they never gets old.

Narrative

Here’s a clue for you all:

Once upon a time there were some small worms who got very very annoyed and decided to go to arms. In order to wipe out their vicious enemy counterparts, they developed some really cool weapons, such as Banana Bombs and Magic Bullets. They trained all night, and every day, so they would become proficient in their wormly ways. Sometimes they would shoot grannies just for fun, and laugh about it in the evening time! We apologise on behalf of all the territories that we went to the trouble of translating Worms2 into, but we didn’t have [the] time to translate these passwords. Not that they need to be done. We suppose that you are really expecting to see a wonderful cheatmode when [you] finish the missions. And you are right!

A word to the wise…

Gameplay

If you are fan of the saga you know the goal: kick opponents asses using a plethora of different weapons. Simple.

There are essentially three games mode: the single player game in a random scenario (actually not only random since you can edit it), the single player “campaign mode” where you have to clear all the different scenarios, from the easiest to the hardest (the last ones are rockhard and you start with like 4 worms against 8 wormd of the CPU…and CPU also starts first!) in whickh the layer will receive a password to “save” the progress and the best mode of them all: Human VS Human, not only 1 vs 1 but up to 4 players can play at the same time. This is the best mode because you have to elaborate a fine strategy and, as in all wars, sometimes you have to break abruptly an alliance with a friend and kill his worms. Obviously the main risk in this mode is that you can have the wish to kill one of the other players 🙂

The weapon department is heartwarming: beside the common weapons (guns, bazooka, kicks etc…) there’s a lot of things you can use to offend the rival that you wonder how the developers could invent them. One of my favourite has always been the Holy Grenade (75 HP of damage…) but there are others absolutely fantastic such as Super Banana Bomb, Cloned Sheep, Old Woman and Priceless Ming Vase. For me has a mythological aura the Salvation Army and the Concrede Donkey which I saw only once in 20 years…

Sound

The best part of the games is not the music, but the sound effects, the noises of the guns and most af all the worms speeches. This is the most funny, entertraining part of the games and the fact is that their speeches never gets old! When you play against a friend and you hear his worm dying with his catchphrase is alway hyper funny. But that’s not all. Why? Because you can edit all the speeches! I mean you can record your voice and use it as he voice of our worms! If you haven’t ever tried you cannot understand…

Longevity

Very high. Not only in the campaign mode, that will make you sweat like nothing else, but also, obviously in the Player vs CPU and especially in the Player vs Player. Once you start playing you’ll never end!

Final score 91/100

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Year: 1998

Developer: Team 17

Publisher: Electronic Arts, Microprose

Genre: Strategy, Turn Based

Game Mode: Single Player, Multiplayer

Original Platform: Windows

From same developer:

• Qwak (1989)
• Alien Breed (1991) and sequels
• Project-X (1992)
• Body Blows (1993) and sequels
• Superfrog (1993)

From the same publishers:

• Boulder Dash (EA, 1984)
• The Seven Cities of Gold (EA, 1984)
• Sid Meier’s Piartes! (Microprose, 1987)
• MicroProse Soccer (Microprose, 1988)
• Kings of the Beach (EA, 1988)
• Skate or Die! (EA, 1988)
• Indianapolis 500: The Simulation (EA, 1989)
• James Pond (EA, 1990) and sequels
• Civilization (Microprose, 1991)
• Car & Driver (EA, 1992)
• UFO: Enemy Unknown (Microprose, 1993)
• Syndicate (EA, 1993)
• Colonization (Microprose, 1994)
• Grand Prix 2 (1994)
• Magic Carpet (EA, 1994)
• The Need For Speed (EA, 1994) and sequels
• Simcity 2000 (EA, 1994)
• Crusader: No Remorse (EA, 1995)
• FIFA International Soccer (EA, 1993) and sequels
• FIFA ’98 World to Road Cup (EA, 1997)

Inspired to:

• Artillery Duel (1983)
• Lemmings (1991) 
• Cannon Fodder (1993)

If you liked it you can also try:

• Scorched Earth (1991)
• Gorillas (1991)

Other chapters of the saga:

• Worms (1995)
• Worms Reinforcements (1996)
• Worms: The Director’s Cut (1997)
• Worms Armageddon (1999)
• Worms World Party (2001)
• Worms 3D (2003)
• Worms Forts: Under Siege (2004)
• Worms 4: Mayhem (2005)
• Worms: Open Warfare (2006)
• Worms (2007)
• Worms: Open Warfare 2 (2007)
• Worms: A Space Oddity (2008)[3]
• Worms 2: Armageddon (2009)[4]
• Worms Reloaded (2010)
• Worms: Battle Islands (2010)
• Worms Ultimate Mayhem (2011)
• Worms Revolution (2012)
• Worms for Facebook (2012)[5][6] (Closed: 2013)[7]
• Worms 3 (2013)
• Worms Clan Wars (2013)
• Worms Battlegrounds (2014)
• Worms World Party Remastered (2015)
• Worms 4 (2015)
• Worms WMD (2016)

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