XBLA Review: Worms 2 Armageddon

I’ve got Worms and in a good way…

When Worms hit XBLA back in 2007, it was an instant hit with one noticeable exception…they forgot to include the Holy Hand Grenade in your arsenal! Despite that, I thoroughly enjoyed it and wondered if they would ever make another version. 2 years later and they finally did, but was it worth the wait?
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Indeed it has. This is literally the Ultimate edition of a Worms game, complete with everything that makes the series as fun as it has been over the years. Classic weapons return while a few new ones surface, there’s a full single player campaign that should take a while to accomplish, not to mention some pretty tough achievements like killing 6 worms in one move or beating a whole match by only using the prod move.

If you have never played a Worms game before, the objective is simple. You control a team of worms one at a time and try and kill the other team with weapons including exploding sheep, grenades, bananas and the fabled Holy Hand Grenade from Monty Python fame. Each time you complete a mission, you get money to spend in the store which will unlock further campaigns and other weapons to use. Yes, you don’t get the HHG straightaway but only after you buy it from the store. Don’t worry though; it’s not a micro-transaction in the form of Microsoft Points, heh.

Worms 2 Armageddon allows you to customise your worms as you could in previous games, but it does have more items to use from different speech banks, hats, skins, graves for your KIA worms and of course you can name the team and individual worms yourself, so get creative! Of course, the real fun of Worms is when you take it online to either own or be owned by the competition. It’s a formula that is perhaps a little old now, but it still works and is incredibly fun to play.

As I already mentioned, some of these achievements are fairly hard…here is the full list:

Going Solo—Complete the Single Player Campaign. (20 points)

Likes the Drink—Kill 170 enemy worms by knocking them into the water. (15 points)

Ranked Master—Achieve 17 wins in each of the following ranked Match types: Standard, Pro Crazy and Fort. (30 points)

Armageddon an Award—Deploy the Armageddon weapon 10 times. (5 points)

Get Your Lob On—Win a game using just the Grenade. (20 points)

Fast, Pink & Hard—Win a Pro Ranked Match in under 3 minutes. (30 points)

Six Pest—Kill 6 enemy worms in a single turn. (10 points)

Cheeky Flocker—Deploy 25 Sheep in any Ranked Match. (10 points)

Prod for Victory—Win a game by using the Prod. (10 points)

Oldest Swinger in Town—Use the Ninja Rope 1000 times. (20 points)

Hallelujah!—Deploy the fabled Holy Hand Grenade. (10 points)

Firestarter—Use fire weapons 200 times. (20 points)
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As you can see, some of them are fairly challenging while others are time-consuming. The good thing is that you should get a majority of them just by simply enjoying the game, which is a blessing. If the game was no fun to play, then these achievements would be so annoying to get…but luckily, it’s highly addictive and it’s hard to get bored of it. I hope that Team 17 make some DLC for this game. I’m not saying that there isn’t already a lot to do in Worms 2 Armageddon…I just want more and I for one wouldn’t mind paying a little bit for DLC.

The Verdict

Worms 2 Armageddon maintains the formula of the series while compiling all the things that made it great for the ultimate version of the franchise. It’s a blast to play and it’s something that will take a while to fully complete. A triumph for both Team 17 and Worms fans.

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