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> Results: Worms 4: Mayhem
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I haven't played a Worms game since the second one. I missed the move to 3D and the multiplayer World Party game. Well, I'm happy to report that this is the same game as the 2D version, if a little more tense and manic. The idea is simple: multiple teams of cute cartoon worms battle with crazy weapons over destructible terrain. It's turn-based, it's great fun playing against a friend or family member, and that makes it a recommendable game.
 A typical turn might go like this. Johnny worm has 30 seconds to navigate and find the enemy. After equipping a parachute, he jumps off a butte and drifts down toward the shore. Landing in water means certain death, and there's a rival nearby. Larry worm quakes in fear as Johnny approaches, going old-school with a baseball bat. Johnny tilts the camera too much and the bat hit that smacks into Larry sends him to the water's edge, but not into the drink. 25 points of damage is easily absorbed by Larry, who was fully healthy at the beginning of this turn. Now it's Larry's turn so he circles around Johnny, putting Johnny between him and the water. Backing up he equips a Sheep. Yes a sheep. He sends the wooly terror toward Johnny and at the right second, he hits the detonator! The sheep goes boom, Johnny goes flying, and while he would have survived the 75 points of damage the sheep caused, landing in the water proves too much for him and this battle is over. Then on to the next worms. Will one of Johnny's teammates get revenge by nailing Larry? Or will the next worm find himself in a better situation to do more damage to the opposing team? Let me know when you want to bust out an airstrike or launch the Fat Boy. (The Fat Boy is literally a giant fat kid who falls from the sky and bounces around wreaking havoc. I have no other reason to tell you this aside from the fact that I, for some reason, really wanted to tell you this.)  What makes it harder to recommend is the bizarre sloppiness of this 3D engine. The camera controls (you control one worm at a time using a 3rd person perspective camera) aren't smooth, it's easy to get lost or confused, and the time limit each turn allows makes for frantic and sometimes frustrating gameplay. This is, as I understand it, the third game in a row using this engine. Why are there so many issues with the camera and perspective? That said, the fourth edition does offer a few cool new tools. You can build your own teams of cleverly named Worms, your own battlefields, and even your own weapons. The novelty makes it a good buy for newbies and these additions make it worth consideration for hardcore Worms players. The single player really isn't worth it (the HARD difficulty really only means that computer controlled worms are infallible or can make impossible shots and, come on, give this game an AI upgrade next time! Please?) but multiplayer absolutely is. This is a great game to play with your kids, for siblings to share, or to have friends over for a wild invertebrate party. 
This is a game about Worms trying to kill each other with shotguns, dynamite, baseball bats, crazy exploding sheep and grannies, homing missiles, and of course the aforementioned Fat Boy bomb. There's no blood and the violence is firmly in the Road Runner/Coyote camp. In fact, the little ammo and bonus boxes that rain from the sky (picking them up can often snatch victory from the jaws of defeat) might as well say ACME on them. It's tongue-in-cheek and more fun than something this simple deserves to be.
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