Now, this is a subjective, personal view, but the idea of listening to some sub-Alvin and the Chipmunks quipping in a videogame has never really held much appeal. Of course the other thing the original Worms brought to the Scorched Earth formula was squeaky-voiced skits and soundbytes. As one of the touted upgrades of Worms:UM (along with such wonders as “nicer water effects”) was an “improved camera” this has alarming implications for the previous games. The 3D view also results in a collection of minor camera issues, from sudden, jarring swaps between first and third person, to erratic viewpoints when launching worms into the heavens with a jetpack (or similar such toy). In-keeping with this reduced emphasis on destruction most weapons have had their areas of effect seriously toned down, and the anaemic hole left by Holy Hand Grenades in this game is a sad thing to behold. All of the levels have water at their foundations, so any kind of tunnelling is out of the question too.
The scenery can be destroyed to a certain extent, but it’s confined to leaving shallow craters in the earth or blowing out a small section of wall from a building. In Worms:UM, events like this one just don’t seem to happen. Destructible landscape was a key component of the 2D Worms variants too, because there are few things more joyful than sparking a chain reaction of explosions that takes out huge chunks of the landscape and sends hapless worms flying everywhere. Worms was never the most original of concepts, but it was at least smart enough to take the ‘turn-based artillery’ genre of games like Scorched Earth and add a multitude of bizarre weapons and options for customisation. Ignore any marketing which claims it’s everything from both titles, because this is not accurate.īranching the series into 3D is probably the one major upgrade Team17 has actually made to the series over the years, but while this adds an extra dimension in the most literal sense of the term it also brings a few undesirable changes to the game.
Worms:UM falls under the ‘re-packaging’ umbrella, combining a few bits from 2003’s Worms 3D (the single player campaign, mostly) and all of 2005’s Worms 4: Mayhem. While this demonstrates a certain amount of enduring love for the mid-90s series, it also indicates a remarkable dearth of creativity on the part of developers Team17. Going by a couple of available sources (ok, yes, Wikipedia and Mobygames) Worms: Ultimate Mayhem (Worms:UM), inclusive of numerous re-issues, re-releases and re-packagings, is something like the 22nd or 23rd Worms release in 16 years.
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