Gaming Memories – Worms.

Worms (PlayStation 1, 1995)

Worms is a game that has a rather strange idea. Teams take part in strategically throwing various weapons at one another to try and eliminate their rivals – but they’re all worms! Who would’ve thought that they all would be so violent? They have all suddenly turned on one another and this was just one of the ideas that made the game so creative.

Each team consists of four worms, and up to four teams can play at once so there can be a maximum of 16 players on the screen. You can also select the name of your team and its members and I enjoyed putting silly-named teams together as much as playing the game which really adds a more enjoyable edge to it. 

When the game begins all of the worms are randomly placed on a playing area and then they are encouraged to take it in turns to try and eliminate the others in a limited amount of time against the clock, with everyone starting with 100 points of energy. Another funny thing about the game was the creative variety of weapons that could be used. 

Among these were banana bombs that always had to potential to do a lot of damage and eliminate lots of worms at once, although you only had a limited number of times you could use them. You could also use things like Uzis to blast a rival, and most memorably of all, an exploding sheep. If you began to get stuck though boxes were occasionally dropped down which contained extra weapons. 

It was always a satisfying moment when you took out a lot of rival worms in one go, and they would always rather worryingly explode and turn into a gravestone as they became an ex-worm. There were lots of funny sound effects and voice clips too. The game continued until there was only one worm or one team of worms remaining, and then after the game ended all the statistics were shown so you could discover which worm on your team was a mean killing machine. 

I enjoyed Worms so much that I had the original version on the Nintendo Game Boy, and I also had the PlayStation 1 version which was one of the first games that I got for that console. Worms was also released on other consoles including the Sega Mega Drive. I also bought the sequels Worms Armageddon and Worms World Party which I thought were great too, and in more recent years there have been many more variations released. 

Having a look at some reviews from the time it seems that Worms drew a mixed response from critics, mostly based on how funny you found the idea of worms slapping or bombing one another, but I always enjoyed playing it myself as I like quirky games and it was one of the reasons why I became fond of the PlayStation 1 in the late-90s.