Worms Battlegrounds Review (PS4)

   

Worms Battlegrounds which is developed and published by Team17 is the first Worms game to make its way to the new generation of consoles. Everything you love and hate from previous Worms games has made its way into Battlegrounds; from the crazy weapons you’ll be using to the amazing aim of the enemy worms. Worms Battlegrounds is for the most part a port of the PC exclusive Worms Clan Wars.

For anyone who hasn’t had a chance to check out any of the Worms games of which there are quite a few, it’s a turn based strategy game that puts you in control of a group of worms with some very unconventional weapons.

Your goal is to be the last team standing at the end of the battle. It blends a nice amount of strategy with a large arsenal weapons you’ll need to learn to truly become the greatest worm warrior around.

Worms Battlegrounds story revolves around Tara Pinkle, a member of the historical hooligan’s society. Tara is a thief to put it bluntly and she has no problem telling you so over and over throughout the story.

Tara has recruited a group of worms to help break into a museum to steal back the Stone Carrot from her nemesis Mesmer. There are 25 levels across the museum with each display being part of a different time in history like the stone age or the industrial revolution.

The story missions start off easy enough but continue to get harder and harder. The first 5 levels are basically a tutorial showing you how to pick weapons and use them but as you get farther in, it won’t just be kill everyone and you win.

Some areas will have puzzles to solve that can be rather difficult. One mission for example had me drop a mine on a door, place a magnet at another spot, open the door so the mine would fall and get caught in the magnets pull bringing it to an area I couldn’t reach to kill an enemy. That one took me some time to figure out.

The down side to these story missions though is how long they can take. Enemies will consistently stand in position for 15 to 20 seconds before deciding what it is they want to do then another 5 to 10 seconds to actually do it. That wouldn’t be a problem if there was some type of fast forward or skip to your next move button but unfortunately there isn’t.

The enemy worms also have some of the best aim out there. Seriously if these worms were playing Call Of Duty against your team you would rage quit. I have trouble lining up a shotgun blast from half a screen away but these guys can be a full level away and have perfect aim every time and don’t even get me started on their rocket launcher skills because it’s just ridiculous.

For how good the enemy worms aim is they can also be really dumb. I’ve seen worms blow themselves up with rocket launchers more than a few times and they weren’t even trying to hit me.

Multiplayer is where the real meat of the game is. You have 2 choices in online modes which are standard Team Deathmatch and a game type called Forts. Forts give each team a base to protect from the enemy while you try to destroy their base by blowing up walls to get your team inside.

In multiplayer your team is fully customizable from what class you want each worm to be which will give it different perks like the scientist worm who can heal your team. You can also changing their names, cloths and even voices.

The customization doesn’t stop there though. Battlegrounds also features a fairly deep level editor and unfortunately creating anything unique is a bit of a challenge. Don’t expect a Little Big Planet level of customization here.

Since I reviewed the game on the Playstation 4 I got the chance to see some of the features they added in for the console. The most notable addition is that your teams voices will play through the controller which is something I always enjoy however if that’s not your type of thing the only way to stop it is to turn down the volume on the controller speaker through the PS4 itself. Another feature they added is being able to move through menus with the touchpad which is kinda useless.

Worms Battlegrounds has its good and bad points but overall stays true to the franchise by giving you challenging puzzles, a huge arsenal of weaponry and of course a ton of worms. While the slowness of enemies can become infuriating at times it makes up for it in how challenging it can be once things get moving.

The online multiplayer is incredibly fun once you start to understand what each of the weapons does and the level editor if used correctly can make some interesting levels but nothing that’s mind blowing. Worms Battlegrounds is a decent addition to the franchise and a welcome addition to my PS4.