Review: Worms Armageddon (N64)

By Drew Wilson

Worms Armageddon is an interesting strategy game. It is a turn-based strategy game with a similar premise to the oldschool tank wars games such as Scorched Earth. We review the 1999 N64 release of this game.

According to Wikipedia, this game was released on the Nintendo 64 in 1999. While the N64 was cranking out interesting titles that were pushing the boundaries with the new 3D environment, this game stuck to a 2D environment on the platform. I have to say, it is probably the best 2D videogames ever released on the N64.

The premise is that war has broken out and your task is to lead an army of worms to victory using some of the craziest and hilarious weapons imaginable.

There are various modes of play. You can take basic training and then start taking on actual missions or you can duke it out with the PC with your team in deathmatch mode. Either way, you’ll be able to earn more weapons and utilities to help your gameplay along in deathmatch.

The weapons are absolutely hilarious. They include the more basic flame thrower, the classic bazooka which is affected by wind, grenades and they move into the realm of comedy gold such as the Holy Hand Grenade, the French Sheep Strike, and the Concrete Donkey. Sometimes, it’s awesome to use all this highly explosive weapons, but end the match with the finishing move of shoving the last opponent into the water with the prod. Other times, you can use a super banana bomb so you can win the “NASA Greets” award after sending the worm either ridiculously high or ridiculously far as it skips across the water like a skipping stone. Either way, the strategy of it all and the zany weapons really made this game one of the funnest I’ve ever played.

The music really helped provide a great atmosphere. The music can be calm and relaxing with the jungle-type level and frantic with the theme for sudden death mode. The sound effects were also spot on and really added a great punch to this game with the various ways a weapon can be fired. If you really want an example where sound effects helped make this game great, try using a baseball bat on an enemy worm at the edge of the level so it will fly into the drink. Of course, the way the worms taunt each other also added an extra kick of humor to it all as well.

The graphics made the terrain interesting as most of the graphics provided various kinds of obstacles for the worms to maneuver (or not, depending on what settings you’ve made in the settings screen) around as you vie for an advantage on the enemy worms. You can even catch a few Easter eggs in the game if you watch some of the worms stay idle for long enough (or happen to look at one at the right time).

Multi-player, for me, was also great in this game because sharing the experience with a buddy magnified the good experience you can get off of this game.

Overall, this strategy game was an absolute blast to play (OK, pun was kind of intended). It is also probably one of the best games ever released on this platform as well.

Update: This game is the 1999 game of the year.

Overall
Furthest point made it in game: Achieved highest ranking in deathmatch and beaten the mission mode. Did this twice now.

General gameplay: 25/25
Replay value: 10/10
Graphics: 10/10
Audio: 5/5

Overall Score: 100%

Drew Wilson on Twitter: @icecube85

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