Thanks to Team17 for the review code
Title: Worms Armageddon: Anniversary Edition
System: Xbox Series X
Price: $24.99
Release Date: 09/25/2024
Story
In this sequel to the original Worms game, it’s an all out war! Having only played a spinoff in the past via Evercade, and only like, 3 minutes of the original game, this Anniversary Edition is a nice compilation of a new, modern console version of Worms Armageddon, an emulated port of the GBC version of the game, and a timeline showcasing the history of the early Worms franchise, thanks to Digital Eclipse. Does this do a good job at introducing a newcomer like me into the most famous entry of the series? Let’s find out!
Presentation
Due to the three section nature of this reissue, Armageddon Anniversary is a bit weird with the presentation. You have a handy intro menu, showing the three different game options, (Original, Handheld, Documentary) and all of them have a slightly different vibe to their presentations. Original is just the original game with all sorts of fancy HD menus, options, and more to quickly get into a game; this ain’t emulated at all, but rather a very fine port! Looks pretty darn good on my 4K TV, and even the funny voice clips are intact with a lot more charm than I expected from a game like this. Good stuff.
The zoom out can be a little jarring though, since the view is very, very far away, which is fine on my 4K display, but I don’t see being particularly easy to see when scaled down to smaller screens. Still, it looks crisp and clean and outside of having a bit of a computer-ish vibe to the interface I didn’t have qualms with the presentation.
The GBC version on the other hand is similar to Digital Eclipse reissues in the past, with a few different border and filter options, all continuing the high quality standard that DE has come to maintain. Also good stuff, and this GBC version runs fine as far as I can tell, though it is incredibly strange how the Nintendo references on the title screen and the in-game menus showcasing the game controls are intact, since normally reissues brush that stuff out. But nope, GBC Worms is all here exactly as you remember it, with a handy save state feature to help you out. The view here is the opposite to the modern version, since you’re really zoomed up close in the GBC port, but I found that much easier on my eyes. There’s also a handy scanned manual of this version here to read if you need help playing.
Then there’s the documentary aspects, positioned in a similar timeline akin to Atari 50 and the like, but a lot more condensed. Mostly a linear line consisting of interviews and other cool aspects about the series, and I found these to be pretty solid, despite the archival aspects not being as strong as those from DE’s self-published collections. All in all, a well polished release that works great on Series X.
Gameplay
I’m doing things a bit differently here, as while this is a singular game, there are three different sections of it laid out, and I feel breaking them up ala my compilation reviews will help a ton for me to get my thoughts down on this package as a whole. Also part of this is because oops, I took too long to focus on the main HD part of the package and spent time doing other things. You’ll see why shortly.
Worms Armageddon (Main Game)- The main game, restored for consoles! For those unaware of how Worms even functions, the main goal is that you’re a team of Worms with military equipment, fighting against teams of opponents by attacking them back and forth with a huge variety of weapons, aiming to be the last team standing! While I mostly taught myself how to play via the handheld port, this main version is the real deal. However, this is obviously meant to be played multiplayer, and unfortunately I was unable to round up another local person to test that with me, so I had to settle for the CPU and attempted to play the single player campaign.
I say “attempted”, because in order to even play the solo campaign, you have to clear some training missions, which help teach you the nature of several weapons and how to use them. A generally solid idea for a tutorial, except if you fail any of these nine missions even once, you have to do them all in sequence again. Despite eventually getting the hang of the game’s aiming, I still couldn’t get past the third training mission, and just figured to ditch the whole solo campaign aspect in favor of deathmatch fights against the CPU, after warming myself up with the Handheld version.
You know what? Despite clearly being meant for a computer, this game is still really darn fun to play and control on Series X. Sure, some actions aren’t really clear and using the right stick as a cursor is pretty much required for certain weapons, but boy are there a ton of weapons; so many in fact that you’ll be spending a bunch of time tinkering around with them to find the ones to work for you. Whether you end up using an uppercut up close, throwing a grenade into a group of worms, or drilling so far down that you take other worms into the ocean with you for instant kills, there are many, many ways to take out the enemy forces, along with your own troops. Friendly fire is not optional here, and that leads to a fun amount of chaos.
Yeah the single player just basically amounts to “fight bots until you’re bored”, but there’s still a lot of fun to be had even with this limited scope, and I was shocked by how unlike most multiplayer focused games I cover, I still had a good enough time with the CPU to spend a few sessions trying to outsmart them. Sometimes my team just got placed in very bad spots, while other times I lucked out with a good weapon arc or by calling in a rain of napalm at just the right moment. The real treat to Worms Armageddon for me really was just finding out the silliest, cheapest method to multikill the opposing teams, and once that clicked, I really began to have a good time, aiming awkwardness aside. It really makes me annoyed I couldn’t get a local partner to play this with before review, but I’m absolutely confident if I’m having this much fun goofing around with a mindless bot, I’d absolutely have a huge blast with a group of friends going nuts with sheep, mines and more crazy weapons. Add in the ability to heavily customize your games for more chaos, and this one is excellent if you have friends.
Worms Armageddon (GBC)- This ended up being the version I tried first, and whoa, while it is lighter on content than the main game (which already is pretty light in terms of single player stuff), this portable version has a ton of charm to it, and ended up being a better tutorial to Worms in general for me than diving into straight the remaster would have been. Scaled down, simplified, but still with the same good ol tug of war combat, with way better visibility and an easier pick up and play nature due to the save state feature.
This version is emulated really darn well too, and the LCD filter makes the game really pop, even on a 4K TV, so I had a pretty great time getting into this version. Maybe a bit too great, as this ended up addicting me more than the main game did, to the point this review got a bit derailed as I couldn’t stop playing around with this version and also didn’t mind the lack of a multiplayer partner for this. Heck, I think this one is even better playing against bots with, despite the limited options. Oopsie!
You can even do local versus matches via passing the controller back and forth, so outside of the lack of online play, this is a pretty darn fun remix of the main Armageddon game, and honestly a great inclusion as a means to compare and contrast with the shiniest version of the game. Perfect for quicker pick up and play, really, and I’m seriously tempted to pick this up on Switch just for the sake of playing this handheld version on the go. Who knew simplistic fun still held up!
History of Worms– A three chapter documentary akin to the stuff Digital Eclipse has done for the Gold Master series thus far. You get a bunch of scanned materials, photos, and video interviews, though not as many as in the aforementioned gold master titles. Still, you get a really good story explaining the origins of Worms, the launch of the original game, the release of the sequel and Armageddon coming out of that, before ending on how the series shifted to 3D and still exists today.
A lot of the documentation here is focused on earlier stuff and yes, Worms 1 isn’t in this package, but to be quite honest, it really didn’t need to be considering how Armageddon is so much above it to the point the original would be redundant. I do wish the spin-offs were mentioned a bit more though, since outside of a few remarks here and there you don’t hear about Pinball, Golf, or Blast hardly at all, and as one who started with the latter, that did make me a little bummed.
Nevertheless, this was a great introduction to how the development process was, and really goes to show just how Andy was determined to get his game out and have his little multiplayer pet project blossom, and there’s still a bunch of funny E3 photos and the like to make this section well worth a full watch.
Conclusion
Ultimately, Worms Armageddon is a multiplayer focused game focused on, duh, multiplayer. Thus it pains me I wasn’t able to rally my usual partner over for some crazy action, but I was surprised by how much fun the core concept was even against CPU, and how the GBC version ended up being outright addictive despite not even having a campaign mode. The sheer amount of weapons and strategies to choose from, the crazy ways you can die or take foes down with you, the many stage layouts that you could end up on, all end up combining to provide a delightful experience that’ll keep you decently entertained by yourself and absolutely hooked with a party of pals.
That doesn’t even get into the good archival work done by Digital Eclipse here. Yet again they nail another documentary style reissue, and while their work here is a lot more limited than stuff in the Gold Master series, the amount of archival material and entertaining video content is more than enough to teach a newbie like me the story behind Worms and why people love the series so much. While I can’t say I’m a megafan now after playing this, I’m way happier to say I finally have a Worms game under my belt that entertained me, which I couldn’t say about my last Worms experience; GBA Worms Blast. Ouch.
I give Worms Armageddon: Anniversary Edition a 7 out of 10.