These worms aren't warm - unless you set them on fire

Worms World Party was released in 2001 by Team17/UbiSoft. It is a strategy/war type of game that almost anyone can play and enjoy. The basic learning curve isn't too drastic, but there's also enough strategic experimenting for the more hardcore gamers. I have recently gotten back to game-playing a little bit because of my beloved, and I love playing this together with him. I've developed enough competence to win on occasion.

My two main complaints about the game are the speed of the menu screens and the color scheme. The menus have good content to edit, but once you click on them, they take many seconds to load. In the day and age when we expect every computer program to load at lightning-fast speed, the slowness of the menus in Worms is a bit of an annoyance. I also have a problem getting a full color screen when I first load the game from CD. This could very well be my computer's fault, though, not the game's fault; I really don't know why it occurs. The game should resemble a colorful cartoon quality; if it doesn't show up this way, just exit out and start up Worms again. I've never had the same problem occur twice in a row.

The main menu screen has four box choices: a single-player game, multi-player game, online game, and the primary options menu. Single-player games allow you to play a computer opponent, or simply practice on your own. You can pick from a quick one-battle game against a computer opponent, training sessions (which allow you to practice specific weapons skills alone, like aiming and shooting guns), mission attempts, and deathmatch games.

Deathmatch games are similar to mission attempts in that each match gets progressively harder. I recommend starting them first for beginners who have already completed a few training sessions with their worm squad. The deathmatch games start out very easy - all eight of your worms (each team has up to eight) start out against a team or teams with only 1-2 worms each. Playing several of these can be great practice for people who want to work on their fight tactics. The deathmatches contrast with the mission attempts in this way; in the missions, you have to complete certain activities in progressive steps - the focus is less on the actual battles than in completing certain objectives that aren't always related to winning an all-out strategic fight. In a mission, for example, all you might have to do to complete a single mission is search for an item in a crate. Once you do that, you have completed the mission; fighting other worms isn't necessarily involved.

The multiplayer menu also features missions, but not deathmatch games. Multiplayer is great if you have someone else in the house who wants to fight against your worms. You don't have to involve computer opponents, but you can also include them for additional challenge if you want to fight against multiple worm teams.

The online game option, not surprisingly, allows you to play against people online. However, since this game was released in 2001, not as many people are actively playing it, so don't be surprised if you can't get into any online games these days.

Finally, the primary options menu allows you to edit all sorts of details for the game. In there, you can create your own worm team. Each worm team has a name, and each worm has its own individual name that you can create. The options menu also has an area where you can edit teams already in existence, so if you ever want to change names, the voices worms make (yes, the worms in this game talk and taunt each other!), your victory battle sound, your worm team's flag, and so forth, this is the place to go.

Another place in the options menu allows you to view a worm team's stats (how many victories a team has, how many kills, etc.). Perhaps most importantly, the options menu has a place where you can pick and edit the strength of the game's dozens of weapons; the heart of the game lies in the various weapon tactics you can use in a battle. Here, Worms World Party is an especially creative game - you have many more choices than just shooting or punching a worm. Among other interesting weapons, there's a very powerful exploding banana, a pigeon that seeks out individual worms and explodes on them, a plane that drops missiles from the sky, and cluster grenades. There are so many weapons in this game that the creators wisely offered a 'Wormopaedia' section in the options menu where you can read about each weapon, how it works, and good strategies to use for each weapon.

Another central feature of the game that deserves mention is the variety of terrain maps you can choose from, and even create. Some of the built-in maps are absolutely hilarious - you can play on a football field, within a city, in the desert, and almost anywhere else you can imagine. The maps are 2D, though, so don't expect that you can jump anywhere you normally thought you could. For instance, one map includes a silly graphic of dog poop. Instead of falling into it, you can stand right on top of it as if it were solid ground. Yecch.

In conclusion, this is a highly entertaining game that is very addictive at first. Some have decried its lack of replay value - but as stated, there is enough strategy in this game and enough things you can experiment with to make this game definitely worthwhile.