Worms Armageddon (from English – “Worms of Armageddon”) is a 2D turn-based artillery video game that is the third part of the Worms series and was created by Team17 in 1999. Worms Armageddon was critically acclaimed for its gameplay and stylized graphics, and has been included in a number of lists of the “greatest games of all time”. In 2002, Worms Armageddon was included in the Worms Triple Pack for Windows[1].
As in the previous parts, the gameplay is turn-based. Each team has its own turn, during which the player can perform various actions of worms located at different points of the game’s two-dimensional landscape (move the specified worm to another place, shoot at the enemy, skip a turn, and so on).
There are various ways for worms to move around the map: a worm can crawl, jump, use a teleporter or a rope, use a parachute and many other devices. There are five types of jumps: forward jump, backward jump along a low trajectory, jump straight up, back somersault along a high trajectory, it is also along a low and elongated trajectory. The objective of the traditional contest is to defeat all opposing teams by killing the enemy worms, although the campaign has other objectives in some missions (such as collecting certain baskets)[2].
Each worm starts the round with a certain amount of health (it is chosen before the game, but in the campaign mode all parameters are set initially and cannot be changed). Health can be lost if the worm falls from a great height or is attacked by an enemy. The worm can be killed if its health reaches zero, or if the worm falls into the water. When dying on land, the worm blows itself up, dealing damage to all nearby worms and destroying the landscape, leaving a grave[2][3] in its place.
If at least one worm remains in at least two teams at the end of the match time set by the rules, the “sudden death” mode sets in: either the health of all worms becomes equal to one percent and water begins to flow with each move, or a nuclear bomb explodes, which takes health of all worms. Sometimes this contributes to a very quick end of the game[2].
In Worms Armageddon, for the first time in the series, a full-fledged colorful menu appeared, training missions and “deathmatches”, passing which, the player increases the rank of the team. Also in this part there are many more options for personalizing the team, for example, the choice of flags, fanfare, special weapons, grave design. In Worms Armageddon, gadgets are located in separate blue boxes, and barrels of gasoline are scattered across the landscape along with mines[2].
Weapons and accessories
The game includes a wide range of melee weapons, as well as artillery, thrown weapons, and airstrikes. Some of the weapon types are based on real weapons (shotgun, bazooka and grenade), others are based on more bizarre objects and animals, for example, sheep serve as a mobile explosive, and a skunk releases poisonous gas [4].
Depending on the rules of the game, additional weapons can randomly drop on the ground from the air or appear by teleportation[4]. In addition, superweapons rarely end up in weapon crates.
Most of the weapons were transferred from the previous part, but many new ones appeared[4].
It was supposed to be the last game in the Worms franchise, but its creator Andy Davidson felt that more game content needed to be developed before release, as a result, many of the developments were applied in the creation of Worms World Party [5].
1999 in Europe[7] and May 31 in North America[8]. In America, the game was published by Micro Prose, which was owned by Hasbro Interactive[9]. On November 30, 1999, the game was ported to the Dreamcast and PlayStation[10][11], on January 19, 2000 to the Game Boy Color[12] and on March 30.
2000 to the Nintendo 64[13]. The Nintendo 64 version was one of the first games for the platform to feature a terrain editor and a random map generator[14]. Mascot developed a Macintosh version, but it never came out[15]. The game was composed by Bjorn Lune, the game’s lead programmer was Carl Morton, and the lead artist was Dan Cartwright. The Steam release includes all the improvements from previously released updates[17]. On March 20, 2013, Worms Armageddon was released on Steam as a standalone game[18].
Despite the fact that Worms Armageddon was released over 20 years ago, the game is still updated periodically, mainly thanks to two programmers: Decode and CyberShadow (Vladimir Paneled) – who were hired by Team17[19]. The last update was released on July 16, 2020[20].
