Worms 3D

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a game by Acclaim, and Team17 Software Limited
Platforms: XBox, PC (2003), Playstation 2
Editor Rating: 8.5/10, based on 2 reviews, 3 reviews are shown
User Rating: 8.9/10 - 7 votes
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See also: Artillery Games, Worms Games

As someone who loves this series when Worms 3D was announced I did have rather mixed feelings. This is a game that was deeply rooted in 2D so I was unsure of how it would translate to the 3rd dimension. Thankfully, it worked out pretty well and while it may be a bit “different” I do feel that they managed to capture the spirit of what the series was known for. Also, this game was mass released with it appearing on PC, PlayStation 2, Xbox, and Nintendo GameCube!

Hey Ma, I Am 3D!

Let’s get the graphics out of the way first. Worms is a series that despite its modest presentation managed to have a massive personality. Thankfully Worms 3D brings back this personality, but thanks to the new visuals improves upon it. The Worms themselves look fantastic. Their facial expressions and of course the funny stuff they say gives them a ton of personality.

The levels are randomly generated so you never get the same one twice. The backgrounds are a bit sparse, but to be fair everything is colorful and fits in with the new 3D Worms characters that they have created. The sound is a bit of a mixed bag, the main song gets annoying very quickly and there appears to be a lot more repeating of lines here.

2D Gameplay In A 3D World

Despite the jump to 3D, Worms 3D very much plays like a traditional Worms game. You still have your army of Worms that you need to use in order to defeat the other teams. You have various weapons and abilities that you can use and moving your Worms around the map can be key to getting a better position. The Worms are a tad stiff to move around, but you do get used to it quicker than you would think. While I like most of the aspects of moving the game to 3D, the camera can be an issue. There are times where you are hidden behind a bit of the world or you cannot get a good view on what is happening as something else is in the way. This is an issue many 3D platform games have, but it can be frustrating here and sometimes even feel unfair.

So Much To Do

Worms 3D is pretty stacked with game modes. While there is not a “story” you do have a single-player campaign to complete which is fun. There are over 30 missions for you to complete and there is a nice mixture of missions that are all about having fun and carnage and missions that require you to do some deep thinking in order to beat them. As you would expect, multiplayer is an absolute blast and you have a very decent selection of game modes to enjoy when you are playing with your friends.

I know that some games struggled when they made the jump from 2D to 3D. However, despite a couple of flaws, I feel that Worms 3D did a great job in nailing the transition to the 3rd dimension. It very much feels like a classic Worms game, but now you can move around with much more freedom. The single-player mode is a lot of fun and the multiplayer is even more fun than that!

8

Final Score

Pros:

  • I love the way the Worms look in 3D
  • The game is very amusing
  • The campaign has a lot of variety to the missions
  • Playing with your friends is a blast
  • The levels are randomly generated

Cons:

  • Sometimes Worms get hidden behind stuff
  • The soundtrack is rather annoying

Download Worms 3D

XBox

System requirements:

  • PC compatible
  • Operating systems: Windows 10/Windows 8/Windows 7/2000/Vista/WinXP
PC

System requirements:

  • PC compatible
  • Operating systems: Windows 10/Windows 8/Windows 7/2000/Vista/WinXP
Playstation 2

System requirements:

  • PC compatible
  • Operating systems: Windows 10/Windows 8/Windows 7/2000/Vista/WinXP

Game Reviews

Time passes and things change. Mountains disappear, civilizations rise and fall and what were once pixels with bazookas become three-dimensional pink things with bazookas. They're back, they're in 3D and they've got an exploding sheep with your name on it. Just as with previous Worms games, Worms 3D features several teams of worms with an arsenal of bizarre weapons at their disposal, who fight in a turn-based battle in which the enemy must be drowned, exploded and burnt to death by throwing an assortment of weapons in their general direction. The game has always provoked inordinate amounts of lip-biting, gauging of wind speed and kicking of desks, but how has it fared in its transition to the third dimension?

Think In 3d

If you're a seasoned Worms hack, then initially the extra dimension is a bit worrying, and despite the pick-up-and-play Worms ethos, it takes you a while to figure out how to manoeuvre your warrior over the battlefield. You can see the action from three viewpoints: a spinning mouse-controlled camera, a first-person viewpoint for lobbing/firing your chosen armament and a wider birds-eye view of proceedings for strategic planning and homing missile targeting. It's all fairly simple, but things like the new-fangled control you have over your worm's jumps take some getting used to. And Worms staples like the Ninja Rope suddenly need about eight keys and a basic education in rope-physics before they can be used successfully in swinging from platform to platform.

Compounding this, the third-person camera is liable to throw a few wobblers at you during your game, either presenting you with a close-up of a grassy hillock or schizophrenically swapping angles so that you get confused and accidentally saunter into a nearby landmine. That's the sniffy games-journalist angle done and dusted. The good news is that these problems fade away the more you play and the more adept you become. Multiplayer is as enjoyable as it always has been, allowing for Internet play, LAN games and the traditional huddle-around-the-monitor social interaction for which Worms is famous. Singleplayer, forever the bane of Worms-lovers, is the best that the series has seen.

Get Around

Whether you're parachuting your invertebrate from the top of a giant beanstalk, storming the Normandy beaches or protecting top-hat wearing worms in their Ewok-type village, the solo missions are invariably novel and entertaining, even though frustration and monitor-bashing are only ever a few heartbeats away. Victory means that maps are unlocked for multiplayer, so it's always worth it in the end.

There's no doubt the extra dimension adds a hell of a lot to the Worms experience. It's hugely satisfying to make vast craters in the destructible terrain, and the tight physics make parachutes and jet-packs a fashionable means of transport for worms-about-town. The whole package is impeccably presented, endlessly customisable and contains music so good you'll be dancing on the rooftops. The switch to 3D isn't seamless, there are several bugs of the nonworm variety, but an old-school charm shines through that can't help but make you smile.

Personally, I'd have rather been playing Scorched Earth. While Acclaim hasn't been known for releasing showstoppers, this update of an old franchise seems a worthwhile party game to occupy a small group of game playing friends. You'll find most of the familiar staples from the Worms series still present, only repackaged in an inconvenient, hard to control form. In all seriousness, the one thing I'd have wished I could do with this game was easily aim and shoot without needing to use the camera controls each time.

Thankfully, especially for someone with my skills, this game comes with a wonderful little tutorial that helps you pickup the skills necessary to blow other people to kingdom come. Although it took some getting used to in the other games, it's downright aggravating in this version, as aiming in a 3D environment from what is essentially a 2D view of that environment can be a difficult thing to learn. However, all in all it wasn't too much of a pain and as much as I protest, watching the little suckers give up the ghost and explode in a ball of murderous fury is too enjoyable to dislike.

Worms 3D has good composition for a franchise transition title, although not of the quality I'd attribute to such instant classics as Ninja Gaiden , Metroid Prime , and The Legend Of Zelda: The Wind-Waker , all of which were superlative examples of how one can keep the gameplay alive and reminiscent of days gone by, but suitably update the game at the same time. It maintains the gameplay, but doesn't keep an amazing grip on your eyeballs, just a good one. Thankfully, the worms are relatively decent trash talkers, so there's that for enjoyment.

Multiplayer, however, is where it's at. Although I didn't have enough people to test this out, using a multitap and passing gameplay, I've heard it's possible to get up to 16 people on a single game, each controlling a worm. With those kinds of numbers, and this kind of destruction, Worms 3D can be a good evening's worth of entertainment. Fans of the old series should be happy, and newcomers will be treated to some good gameplay.

Snapshots and Media

XBox Screenshots

PC Screenshots

Playstation 2 Screenshots

See Also

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