Worms Revolution Review

Traditional strategy games have been going the way of the dodo as of late, replaced by hip new tower defense titles like Orcs Must Die! and Trenched. However, leave it up to Team 17 and their long-running Worms series to stick to their guns and keep turn-based tradition alive. With the new Worms Revolution now available for armchair warriors everywhere, is everything old truly new again, or is it a war-torn relic from days gone by.

At first glance, Worms Revolution does not do anything to differentiate itself from its original outing in 1995. Its massive artillery, methodical turn-based roots, and offbeat humor are all present and accounted for. So the question is, why upgrade to the current model? Because of all the new bells and whistles, of course! This 2012 outing gets with the times, packing online play, upgraded graphics, and downloadable content. These bullet points might not steal headlines or revolutionize the world, but they are still welcome additions nonetheless.

However, the greatest addition made to Worms Revolution is far more subtle. Packing a robust physics engine under the hood, each skirmish now has an added layer of strategy. Elements of the terrain can mean the difference between victory and defeat, yet mastery of these unorthodox tools brings an unbridled sense of joy. Washing away a legion of enemies in a torrent of water is just so satisfying.

However, other elements of the game just feel plain dated. The methodical gameplay is fine when one is planning your next move, but can feel like an eternity when one waits for their opponent to inch their worm along. The jokes that permeate from every nook and cranny of this game may be funny, but they tread a little too closely to obnoxious territory. One need not look farther than the options menu and its “meme” option to see how grating the humor can be.

But therein lies the fun of the game. When playing with others, Worms Revolution is still (quite literally) an absolute blast. Nobody wants to hear a high-pitched Charlie Sheen impression by themselves, but forcing your opponent to listen to your worm’s views about “winning” after a painful defeat makes victory all the sweeter. There’s no way you can distract a computer AI when they are slowly deliberating their next move, but distracting a rival to the point of failure is an experience all its own. Put simply, Worms Revolution was made for versus play.

Worms Revolution might be more of an evolution than a revolution, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. Rome was not built in a day and battles are not won in a single fortnight. Take the changes made in stride, and accept the package for what it is: a refinement of a time-tested formula. After all, if it isn’t broke, why fix it?