Worms

The Good
Commando style action. Two against 10 and you could actually pull it off. I played this game some 3-4 years ago and am unable to get it running again currently, but as I remember it, the pattern for most games was this: major landscape sculpting in the first few moves, clears out the field, and from then on you get into these desperate cliffhanger (literally) situations, like one of your guys being being stuck in a crater somewhere and the other on an island in the middle of the sea with opposing teams taking potshots at him. In Scorched Earth, it'd be game over. In here, however, you throw your grappling hook and swing about on ropes like crazy, jumping half-screens Indiana Jones style. It takes some skill, but when you've had practice, you can pull off the wildest tricks (whoever thought that WORMS are good material for some Man on the Flying Trapeze action is a bit strange, but he sure came up with an ass-kicking game!). Sometimes it takes like 20 moves until you get out of your jam (whatever it may be), but when as a result you get to land a rocket straight between the eyes of your hapless opponent, it's anything but unrewarding. And the booms sure kicked ass in this game.

All in all, an absolutely engrossing game. The landscapes were amazingly good (as far as I can remember, there was some random generator involved that made every game different but still keeping the "drawn" quality of the landscapes), the weapons were fun and most of the Scorched Earth aiming-maiming-blowing-up-mountains action was there in full glory with the added component of vertigo-inducing mobility. Get yourself 4 teams with 4 worms each on one screen-sized battle field, and just start shooting!

The Bad
Well, there were some concerns with the digging ability: it made the game too wide open. Sure, there sometimes was good dungeon-style fun, but generally it just disrupted the glorious Scorched Earth/Tarzan action for some rather boring Great Escape-style trudges through earth and rock with a spoon. And the computer didn't make use of it either, which didn't seem fair in single-player games. (I don't actually think he made great use of the hook either - there might've been some concerns with the computer AI as well. Though he sure shot like Yul Brynner in Westworld.)

And the main drawback in comparison with Scorched Earth: the weapons were just not as cool. Sure it figures, them being worms not tanks after all, but I miss Napalm Death and all that firework kinda stuff. And you can't bury anyone alive either.

One more minor complaint: there was one landscape with a big (and super fing cool!) bridge making up 2/3 of the game field. It was hanging over water, creating ample opportunities for some pushing and shoving-style assassinations (the worms shove like crazy, I should've mentioned that) - BUT. Guess what happens when you blow up the bridge in two places. One section of it just hangs there in mid-air, with no support at all. Uh-uh.

*The Bottom Line
Scorched Earth meets - a bunch of amateur worm alpinists. Beautiful Switzerland scenery better beware!

The Good
This is it! The game that spawned a massive franchise, and took a spin on the warfare/strategy game by taking out all military humans with tiny, stupid worms with BIG guns!

The Amiga version was actually the first version released. Amiga Format magazine held a competition to create a game. The prize was a job at Team 17, and the game to be published. Programmer Andy Davidson created Worms in a language called Blitz Basic and sent it. It won by miles, and was published first as an Amiga-exclusive game. It sold by the truckload, and was therefore ported over to the PC, playstation and many other machines for more success.

The reason why it sold so well was because of the strategy required by the players. It was perfectly balanced to suite the taste of beginners and experts alike. Beginners will try and shoot other worms spot on, whilst experts will hide away from the action and control their air strikes etc. from there. One feature that will keep the experts interested is that the wind can affect your shots of the bazooka, meaning that the speed and angle of the shot have to be taken into consideration.

The controls are very simple. Movement is done by using the arrow keys and the enter key to jump. The spacebar is used to fire your weapons, and the right-mouse button brings up your inventory.

There are an unlimited amount of levels, which are all randomly generated with six different themes. These are Hell, Mars, Junkyard, Forest, Desert and Polar.

The sound effects are mostly comments from the worms themselves. These are very funny, and well worth coming back for. Apart from that there's not much else in terms of SFX, and there's no music at all.

The Bad
The only downside is that the worms themselves are very small, so you need some pretty good eyesight.

The Bottom Line
The original and best. Better than any of it's countless sequels. You should consider grabbing a copy of this. The amiga version can be played through this great emulator :

http://www.winuae.net/

The Good
This game should definitely be in the same immortality league as Lemmings - it's just so cute! Kind of like the good old Scorched Earth only newer, smoother and definitely cuter, you simply never get tired of this game.

Despite the annoying music, this game's sound effects are awesome (there are many voice packs you can choose from, Monty Python for example).

A definite landmark in computer gaming.

The Bad
What's not to like? A classic!

The Bottom Line
A terribly cute game most people find incredibly addictive.