Got Mates ? (Worms World Party (DC))

Member Name: pooky

Product:	Worms World Party (DC)
Date:	15/05/01 (228 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great multiplayer fun

Disadvantages: Dull one player game, Network halls lie empty, Jerky graphics.

And so, with a teary eye and a dry throat, we wave good bye to the Dreamcast. Like an illicit affair, it was great fun while it lasted but the coporate muscle of Sony ultimately proved to much for Sega and their little white box. The software may still be rolling out onto the shelves but with console production now ceased, how long before the rats start to leave the sinking ship. Apart from the cancellation of a few titles, nowhere is this more apparent than in Sega's network plans.

I begin the review with this rather sombre tone because 'Worms World Party' is the second outing for the little pink invertabrates on the Dreamcast and the only significant change between this and it's sequel 'Worms Armageddon' is the inclusion of network play. Despite other titles such as Daytona USA and Unreal Tournament being stripped of online play shortly before release, here it remains. But before discussing the online portion of 'WWW' as it shall hereby be affectionately known, how does the offline game fair?

The people who haven't met 'worms' in their videogame guise before now are few and far between, but just in case. Worms is a two dimensional turn based strategy game whereby you control a team of up to four worms, against up to three other teams. A single turn consists of moving a single worm across the landscape and then using one of a huge variety of weapons to inflict as much damage as possible on one or more opponant worms. A simple concept but once gravity, wind, weapon selection and shot strength have been taken into account the games complexity starts to show.

Whilst not quite as customizable as it's PC cousin, 'WWW' on the Dreamcast still has a fair few options to tinker with. Your worms and team can be named, given their own gravestone should any throw loose their mortal coil (and they will), also the type of accent the worms talk with can be chosen from a large list. Options game wis
e include, turn time, game time, number of rounds to win, which can all be altered. Also whether to place your worms at the start of play or have random placement and whether you choose which worm to use next or have turns cycle round all your available worms.

As already mentioned, the number of weapons is vast. Bazookas, homing missiles, grenades, fireballs, baseball bats, battle axes, cluster bombs, shotguns, miniguns, mortar bombs, to the more peculiar banana bomb, sheep launcher, old granny and concrete donkey. The list is huge and many need different skills to use effectively. There are however two problems with the weapons. Firstly, although there are many, they fit only into a few categories. For example the homing missile and homing pigeon are virtually identical except that one is shaped like a bird (no prizes for guessing which). The old granny and the cow both wander along the landscape and then explode, the old granny just walks a bit slower. Secondly, once the novelty of trying out each one has petered out, especially if you play to win, you find that most of them never get used. Why use a teeny tiny hand gun when you could use a bazzoka or rocket. On most levels weapons are limited in some way but not nearly enough.

As mentioned before, 'WWW' is a two dimensional strategy game. Graphics are cartoon style and work perfectly for the game. However, moving around the landscape they go all... all... (i can't quite bring myself to say it)...jerky! How can this be, the dreamcast which brought us super smooth 3D graphics on countless occasions, is being floored by a cartoon picture and two layers of parrallax scrolling. Apparently something to do with 'WWW' running on Windows CE operating system of the Dreamcast. But who cares about the reason, it shouldn't be so. But at least this doesn't impinge on gameplay at all and static they do look very pretty.
Sound is functional also, plenty of whizzes and bangs for
the explosions and little snippets of speech from the worms as they deal or receive punishment.


The one player game revolves around a series of challenges that progress in difficulty. Pitching one or more of your worms against an opposition usually in order to be the last worm standing. It is fun for a while but in the end proves to be only a mild diversion from multiplayer gaming.


This multiplayer aspect has always been the crux of Worms and in 'WWW' it remains so. With four people playing on a single home console (incidentally now supporting the use of four controllers rather than having to hand one round everybody) worms is great post pub entertainment. And so we come to the network options. Although we must applaud 'Team 17' for leaving them intact, the fact is that so far whenever I have been online there has been virtually nobody to play with. Last weekend, Saturday, mid afternoon, prime online time if you will, there were an astonishingly low six people there. Enough for one and a half games. Although the game has only been released relatively recently, this is still a disappointment. Whether this number will increase dramatically or not in the coming weeks is anybodies guess but with the Dreamcast in freefall I suspect not.

Ultimately 'WWW' is good fun if you have a few mates round for the evening but for anyone on their lonesome it cannot be recommended. Beating the pulp out of computer controlled characters just doesn't hold up. You can't taunt your Dreamcast, look at its sorrowful eyes as its last worm bites the dust. Probably best as a rental after a few beers and a vid, even worth a purchase if you live with a few mates but otherwise steer clear.

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