Worms 3D - Upgraded, Demonstrated, Previewed

Thanks to Eurogamer for their first impressions of Worms 3D, as Team 17's 2D turn-based strategy classic gets Sega-published and updated into the third dimension. The article suggest that "...we couldn't really see how the move to 3D would bring with it much in the way of 'improvements'", but ends up addicted, and "surprised at just how timeless the Worms formula appears to be." Blue's News reveals that a demo for Worms 3D is now out, possibly leaked early, but downloadable from Gamer's Hell, 3D Gamers, and BitTorrent via GameTab, and for those of you still digging the original 2D version, it seems the Asian-only Online Worms has 3 million Beta testers in China.

Hopefully not another sellout

[keesh]

I really liked worms 1 and 2, but armageddon was just a complete sellout, and the whole 'party' thing was a farce. Makes me kinda wary of this...

Re:Hopefully not another sellout

[Textbook Error]

Thankfully it looks like T17 felt the same way - this is much more like a traditional Worms games than the bizarre [team17.com] spin-offs.

Re:Hopefully not another sellout

[nickos]

The best version of course was Worms: The Director's Cut [team17.com], which only came out on AGA Amigas (A1200 and A4000), and was probably the last big game to come out on that platform. That said, it was the ultimate version with loads of cool new weapons and silky smooth quarter pixel scrolling. Mmm - custom chips...

Hum... mmmmkay

[smg_mrBlonde]

"Asian-only Online Worms has 3 million Beta testers in China." Let's hope the game is adictive enough, so that they stop all their spamming.

From the Worms3D website...

[Westley]

The Worms3D website (www.worms3d.com) has this on the forums:

<quote>
Please be aware that the English demo was leaked and we therefore didn't expect it to be available at this point and it's based on somewhat older game code. A german demo is also available. We will release an updated English demo (with first person mouselook for instance) shortly.

Since it's now around, here's some advice.

To run the demo, unzip the contents to a folder and then run the RUN.CMD file, if you have an O/S earlier than 2000 then you will need to change this to .BAT, do not run the WORMS3D.EXE in the BIN folder since this is not how the game runs and it will crash.

There appears to be an issue with the demo on some machines (results in a "cannot read memory" error) and we're now looking into this, which is likely to be a driver/installation problem - we anticipate fixing it shortly and will post more information later today.

For those who are able to run it without problem, we hope you enjoy a very small taste of whats in the full version.
</quote>

Nice to see a company accepting the fact that it's leaked and not instantly jumping up and down in a tantrum: instead, they've tried to help those who are obviously very keen to play the game (including myself) and alerted everyone to possible problems. How refreshing.

No chain reactions?

[Siener]

From the article :
The one thing we really are missing from the originals though are those enormously satisfying chain reactions, where a shotgun blast could send a worm rolling towards a mine, which could send him hurtling through the air, knocking another worm into another mine which could result in the catastrophic loss of half a team.

That's realy a pity. I can remember some real classic chain reactions.

I don't know if I'll buy Worms 3D, but one thing the article has done was convince me that it's a

Look again

[bigwang]

When I tell people that I play Worms online, they usually assume that it's an infantile game. That the game is basically an upgraded version of Gorrillas [gorilla2.net]. But the game can get much much more sophisticated. Here are some common rules for the more challenging game types. [homestead.com] My favorite type of game is a shopper. They require skill, guile and lots of luck.

And the coolest thing is that these games were created by the users. They are not built into the game. Kind of like Frolf =)

Hopefully Worms3D keeps the same type of freedom, or better yet, embeds them into the game to prevent cows =)

Re:Look again

[Siener]

Back in the day (at univesity) we had lots of custom rules. We quickly threw out guided missiles and air strikes - not enough skill involved. We also usually allowed only 3 shots with the rope per turn.

We also played custom games - my favorite was just bazookas and grenades - with a 10 sec time limit. You'll be amazed how easy it is to blow yourself up if you have to rush your turn.

All said I think Worms is one of the all time best multiplayer games - even if everyone plays on the same computer. It's also a great spectator game.

Re:Look again

[wynterwynd]

That the game is basically an upgraded version of Gorrillas.

Actually Worms owes most of it's style to the ancient days of Scorched Earth [classicgaming.com]. Still a great game, the best ones never go out of style. There have been quite a few remakes of it [scorched-earth-game.com], even a 3d version.

I do like the whimsical twist Worms added to the trajectory-combat gaming scene. It's still the one game every one of my friends can agree on playing at LAN parties. Can't wait to get the new one.

Worms for J2ME

[bigredswitch]

Worms is also available [thqwireless.com] for Java-based mobiles, for those who just need to play (and annoy other folks) whist sitting on the bus.

Worms

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't wait for this game... Blaster, Slammer, Welchia and the classic Morris worm duke it out in full 3d!

Get the Demo fo!

[August_zero]

This is probably old news, but the single level demo is out, and is looking very nice.

For those of you worried about the game being runined by 3d:
Environments are still fully destructable
Many of the weapons seem to be back
Controls are a little weird in the demo, but this may be something that gets tweaked before the final release
The game play is identical, except that now you have that pesky "Y" direction to worry about.

I grabbed the demo from Gamespot, but it seems to be about everywhere. Personally I am looking forward to this game even more now that i have had a chance to play with it a bit. It just gives me a great feeling when sequels are done right and this looks to be one of them.