Worms Armageddon

[Sophira]

How many people here play Worms Armageddon? Not Worms 2: Armageddon, but the original.

I'd love to have some matches with you all some time.

[Eric Kays]

I'll buy it just to play it with you and anyone else who plays.

[Sophira]

It's actually a really old game (first came out in 1999) but it's well supported and has frequent updates, and thanks to those updates has no problem running well in Windows 7 64-bit (and I assume Windows 8 too).

It's sold on Steam at http://store.steampowered.com/app/217200/ , but as always with Steam you'd be advised to wait for it to go on sale. It was 50% off just recently for a week in July and has been down to 66% in the past. The Steam release does differ slightly from the CD release (check http://worms2d.info/Steam_release_%28Wo ... ageddon%29 for details), so if you care about that sort of thing you might want to try to get it elsewhere. (If you do get it elsewhere, you'll have to install the latest patch from Team 17's update page after installing - http://wormsarmageddon.team17.com/main. ... &area=upda ; you want 3.7.2.1 as of the time of this writing.)

It's a great game and a *lot* of people still play it. It's also not just about blasting the other teams out of the game - there's also a ton of emergent gameplay. As an example, the Worm Olympics 2014 are taking place right now playing WA in ways it was never originally intended to be played, simply because of how customisable it is. Some of the events include (but aren't limited to):

• Races (of all sorts - Jetpack Races, Rope Races and Parachute Races, to name a few)
• Standard games with unusual rules (to give two examples: Hysteria, where you only get 1 second of turn time - and Abnormal, where the aim is to kill your own worms before the opponent can kill theirs)
• And other events (Golf: Play 8-10 holes on a map where you teleport your worm to the starting position for each hole and throw a grenade into the finishing hole across many obstacles; Capture The Flag: Attempt to destroy the other team's flag on their side of the map before they can destroy yours or kill your worms off; and Comet Dodging, which is more-or-less completely random with basically no strategy involved whatsoever. (Which is to date the only scheme in this year's WO that I've actually won a match in so far. Apparently I'm not too good. Ahem.)

The schemes I've mentioned above are only a small number of the different schemes available, and many of them involve special maps that can be made - there's a good collection of maps at the WMDB - don't be fooled by the out-of-date news and the "Latest Announcement" about the Winter Worm Olympics 2012 having started, maps are still uploaded here regularly and it's a great collection.

In short, it's a great game with a ton of enjoyment to be had.

[narrativedilettante]

I found a flash version I could play for free online but I didn't understand what was happening and gave up.

[Dryunya]

I'm not really playing it anymore, but I used to, and I believe I was pretty good (not "doing those insane rope stunts" good, but good).

[Sophira]

I found a flash version I could play for free online but I didn't understand what was happening and gave up.

AFAIK there wasn't a Worms game made in Flash, at least not from Team 17. What game are you referring to, if you remember?

[narrativedilettante]

This.

[Sophira]

Oh, I see - that's actually the Game Boy Color version that was made. It isn't nearly as good or as easy to play as the actual PC version, I feel.

The basic aim of Worms (on any platform) is to use different weapons to wipe the other team(s) off the map. You choose your weapon, aim in the direction you want it to go, then hold down the fire button (which is S in that Flash version) until you get the amount of power you want, then release it to fire.

There are different weapons you can use, from the basic weapons (Bazooka, Grenade, Homing Missile...) to the bizarre and hugely explosive (Concrete Donkey, Banana Bomb, Holy Hand Grenade...). It's definitely a fun game! The GBC version isn't the best one to start from though, I think.

[narrativedilettante]

That makes sense.

As with many things, a few minutes of Googling isn't really sufficient to gather information. =P

[Sophira]

Eric and I played a few games of Worms Armageddon today.

Here's a screenshot from our last game:

http://neo.theblob.org/worms-thor.png

It was incredibly fun. We played two matches, both best-of-3 - one Intermediate and one Pro. I'm pleased to say I won both (2-0 and 2-1), but it was sometimes incredibly close. It was incredible fun and I can't wait to play more.