Worms World Party Remastered Review

Since Team 17 debuted the Worms franchise twenty years ago, there have been nearly thirty games released in the series, with some of these entries taking the tooled up invertebrates into three-dimensional realms or onto slightly more off-beat pastures, such as pinball tables and golf courses. Arguably though, the series has never managed to top its original 2D incarnations and so it is that on its twentieth anniversary that Team 17 have returned to these old and proven thrills with Worms World Party Remastered.

A polished up take on the original Worms World Party which released back in the dark days of 2001, this remastered edition brings the classic formula kicking and screaming into 2015 with updated 1080p visuals running at a buttery smooth sixty frames per second. Although the resolution and frame rate bump is appreciated, the fact remains that Worms was never a particularly visually sophisticated affair in the first instance and makes the remaster tag feels a little generous as a result.

Still, as any sensible Worms player will tell you, the visuals are just the tip of the series’ qualitative iceberg and like all the other games in the franchise before it, Worms World Party’s embarrassment of riches are embedded within its gameplay rather than found in its visual aesthetic. Thankfully, visuals aside, developer Team 17 have resisted the temptation to tinker with anything under the hood (controller support and steam achievements non-withstanding) and as such, have presented Worms World Party in its arguably definitive form.

For the uninitiated (and hopefully there shouldn’t be many of you), the Worms games are turn-based strategy titles that place an emphasis on tactics and comical weaponry over the typically po-faced selection of arms that other games might offer. Luckily, should you not be terribly au fait with Worms and its myriad titles, a handy training mode is included to get rookie folks up to speed in short order.

For series stalwarts too, accessibility remains a keenly observed virtue as Worms World Party remains similar enough to other entries in the franchise that veterans can pretty much pick up and play right away. Certainly, getting back into the flow of things with Worms is nothing if not extremely easy and welcoming, allowing even seldom-time players to get stuck back into the thick of it with little trouble.

A key component of the evergreen allure that the series has traded on for the last twenty years, is in how it expertly marries the aforementioned strategy elements and over the top firearms and gadgets and in this, Worms World Party Remastered doesn’t disappoint.

From longbows, shotguns, uzis and rocket launchers through to airstrikes, exploding sheep, devastating banana bombs and landscape shredding concrete donkeys, such exotic and varied weaponry are but empty spectacle without the mind to leverage them correctly. Rockets, for example, require skilful trajectories to be set in order that they hit their mark while close quarter weaponry, such as shotguns and baseball bats, must be utilised adjacently to their chosen victim for the fullest effect.

A big and entertaining part of the ingenuity in combat that Worms prescribes is that death and destruction can be meted out against enemies non-directly too. A carefully placed rocket strike could send enemy worms tumbling into the ocean for an instant kill, whereas a well judged fire punch might knock a foe into a ditch stuffed with deadly landmines, thus leading to a quick death as a result.

While folks can get almost infinitely creative with the selection of weapons in Worms World Party, so too does the same creative scope exist for some truly entertaining shenanigans where the defensively-minded gadgets are concerned. From tricky, momentum-based rope swings that can be used to reach otherwise inaccessible crevices, through to steel girders that might be used as a defensive measure to create a makeshift fort, the sheer variety of gadgetry on offer requires players to possess an acumen equal to their use of the game’s more aggressively minded equipment.

Put simply, the opportunity for truly entertaining matches to occur is one that constantly abounds. Even amongst a group of novice players, or those who have been absent from the game for a time, Worms World Party Remastered still manages to elicit thrills on frequent occasion.

Away from the relatively straightforward deathmatch contests that the series is known for, Team 17’s latest layers the proceedings with a number of different modes and customisation options which serve to keep things fresh away from Worms’ most obvious appeal. Between single-player, co-operative multiplayer missions and the nattily named ‘Wormpot’ which allows many hundreds of different customisation options for both offline and online play, it’s certainly not unreasonable to say that Worms World Party Remastered brings a lot of value to the table.

Presentation-wise, the game fails to update the pre-game menus to any resolution beyond 640x480 and while this might be down to a glitch rather than a deeper, more sinister technical issue, it’s arguable that Worms World Party Remastered doesn’t put its best foot forward regardless. Arguably, little should be expected from a new(ish) 2D Worms title, but visual issues such as these don’t inspire confidence in the strength of the game’s remastered moniker.

While the feature-rich offering in Team 17’s latest is one that can be appreciated on your lonesome, it remains abundantly clear that Worms, as ever, is best enjoyed with friends and Worms World Party Remastered stands as no exception to that rule. In the end, this is still the Worms you remember and quite honestly, for better or worse, it hasn’t really changed at all. Furthermore, with its squeakily voiced invertebrates, offbeat named teams and whimsical approach to violence, Worms also presents itself as a suitable prospect for players of all ages, too.