Worms Forts: Under Siege Review

By Tom Bramwell Published 23 November, 2004

We fort this was going to be good.

Version tested: PC

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Nobody has done more for the reputation of the humble worm than Team 17. Over the past decade, the Yorkshiremen behind the world's most anarchical turn-based strategy game have bolstered the unassuming annelid's credentials to such an extent that gamers arguably get more of a rise out of them than the average invertebrophile - and that's an achievement not to be squashed idly underfoot.

Unfortunately, in the case of Worms Forts: Under Siege, the series' undoubted pedigree merely serves to underline just how far the worm has turned away from the origins of its simple brilliance. Besieged by newfound complexity, Forts is more sloth than worm, taking far too long to get going and lacking the razor sharp wit and pace as well as the left-right-click-fire simplicity of its progenitor once it does.

Siege here

'Worms Forts: Under Siege' Screenshot 1

Classic Worms involved two opposing teams chucking explosive sheep, Holy Hand Grenades and other comedy projectiles at one another, and swinging around like Tarzan with the legendary ninja rope across tight, beautifully drawn and crucially destructible environments. Worms 3D just gave it another dimension; many would say to its detriment. Forts picks up from there, and introduces base-building ideas; now you start with a central fort and build outwards every turn, opening up advanced weaponry and other options as you take over the "victory locations" dotted around the map, in addition to trying to pulverise your adversary with bishop-launching cannons and explosive fridge-freezers full of equally explosive frozen ferrets.

But it's lost far more than it's gained. Presumably in order for the base-building to work, Forts has been stripped of the series' trademark destructible landscapes, so that only the worms and buildings can be shot to pieces. Which immediately sacrifices the much-loved possibility of blowing the ground out from under each other, or seeing a wayward rocket carve a makeshift stairway out of a cliff, which conveys a tumbling barrel of napalm onto the unlucky troopers below.

This alone feels like a grave mistake, but it's far from Forts' worst crime. It's rife with other issues; unlocking new weapons which can only be fired from atop certain buildings is a clever idea, but building bases is monotonous, and making good use of the weapons at your disposal is so difficult to do. Things like the springy double-jump may help you cover significant distances, but your journeys these days are generally only round trips from the top of a decent building to a weapons crate and back. The game actually seems to be designed to discourage you from moving around the map.

Naptime

'Worms Forts: Under Siege' Screenshot 2

By far the most frustrating thing about Forts though is the pace. Or the total lack thereof. It used to be that we'd sit there hammering the mouse button to try and speed things up because we eagerly wanted to get on with smashing the bejesus out of each other. Here we just hammer it to help pass the time. The addition of base-building means that you can win either by destroying your enemy's stronghold or by killing all his worms, but either approach takes hours - and that's not too much of an exaggeration. The final tutorial mission, which is your first proper battle against a team of AI-controlled worms, took us 45 minutes to successfully complete - and that was on our fifth attempt.

Beyond that, there are all sorts of little hold-ups to grit your teeth through; waiting for your weapon to turn round because it always seems to be pointing the wrong way, waiting for your enemy to move at all (they'll happily do laps round towers, or sit there for ten seconds contemplating whether or not to collect the crate sitting literally a handful of pixels in front of them, rather than getting on with it), waiting for the turns to switch over, waiting for your worm to idle glacially between two points, waiting for animations for virtually everything to end, waiting for scores to tot up, waiting for crates to land, waiting for buildings severed from the stronghold to collapse, waiting for the single-player mission briefings to stop wise-cracking and actually say what they want you to do. There's so much waiting around.

When eventually you do take control you're not free from the waiting by any means, but, worse, you're also hamstrung by things like the awkward camera, the obstinate control system in general, the keyboard-controlled base-building system which wants to cycle every possible location for your proposed extensions before settling on the one you actually wanted, and quirks like worms getting stuck on battlements, and worms jumping in the wrong direction (why on earth have backflip as the default double-jump action?), amongst numerous other niggling flaws.

The never-ending story

'Worms Forts: Under Siege' Screenshot 3

There's quite a lot to do. In addition to the usual multiplayer hot-seat options (Worms always was best played with two people sat at the same PC) and Gamespy-powered matchmaking service WormNet (completely empty when we checked), there are single-player Campaign and Trials modes. Campaign has you completing various tasks using your worms and limited munitions and tools, like collecting far-flung crates and then clambering up to a victory location, and takes you on a tour of the game's four different period designs, while the Trials are basic deathmatch scenarios played against the AI. Both will unlock all sorts of trinkets to tinker with.

But you just won't be interested in doing any of it. Comedy sound schemes have totally lost their impact for some reason (presumably because it takes about ten minutes now to hear five or so of the worms' custom outbursts), and even the weapons seem to have lost their appeal. You may chuckle the first few times you see them in action, but the monotony of sitting around playing Worms Forts soon takes the shine off - and there's not much shine to go around in the first place. Bishops may flail their rods in midair and grannies may descend their stair-lifts with lovingly animated precision, but the rest of the in-game visuals - the environments in particular - have slipped from "cartoon-like" into the realms of "dreary and featureless".

There is some fun to be had here, but there's too much waiting around and too much mechanical frustration standing between you and said fun that the pay-off is inevitably toothless. Games are too long and drawn out, and in all our time with this we've never experienced the wonder of conquering the remaining members of the opposing team with one surviving worm's audacity, nor any of the countless other exciting and uplifting outcomes familiar to fans of Worms' once finely balanced gameplay. In fact, half of our games lacked outcome at all, with the two teams having to be picked apart on aggregate health after around an hour of cack-handed almost-bludgeoning and constant rebuilding.

Subterranean

It feels like it's being choked to death by its own ambition. Team 17 obviously knew it had to try something new in order to keep pumping out Worms titles, but while it sounds like it might work on paper, the fort-versus-fort gameplay definitely doesn't gel with the Worms dynamic. Instead it robs a once-proud series of almost everything that made it so memorable, and the result is a game that tires as much as it feels tired. We hope the Yorkshiremen continue to develop Worms in new directions, and commend them for giving it a go with Forts, but if the series is to regain its former glory then mere refinement probably won't be enough.

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4 / 10

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About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (28) Latest comment 7 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Royal Fool #1 7 years ago

    4, ouch. Team 17 must feel bad.

    Also:
    *obligatory Halo comment*
    Edited by 1 at 23/11/04 @ 09:29

  • ralphwolfenstein #2 7 years ago

    Only half as good if my maths is correct...

  • Dizzy #3 7 years ago

    4? Ouch...

    I REALLY wanted this to be good. Have been waiting for a worms Live enabled game for ages. Come on Team17... I *want* to give you my money!!!!!

  • myrmican #4 7 years ago

    Played a demo of this. Appalling travesty of what made Worms great...

    What I don't understand is why Team17 don't do the obvious and take the game online, either with mobile devices or just via a thin PC client. Anyone but me remember 'Battlemail' where you emailed moves to each other?

    [begins braindump]
    Step one - Write a client-server protocol for Worms (2D, preferably) and keep the client small if you can. Moves are sent as large packets of email-like data, as time-stamped and secure as can be handled.
    Step two - set up your master server as a matchmaking / statistics and billing system. Clients can 'train' against AIs all they like, but to play against another human costs a small amount - e.g. £5 for a month.
    Step three - Social games are networked between friends running the clients, but each and every client pings back to the master server with confirmation codes and authorisation, to keep the game as fair as it can be. Turn times are about 1/2 an hour or so, to give everyone a fair chance to respond.

    Step four - Everyone starts recieving emails from their friends with hyperlinks to where they can download the WormNET client (or even play though a webbrowser?). Offices world-wide are deluged by surreptitious e-worm traffic as they blow the hell out of each other.

  • Eldritch #5 7 years ago

    You might want to check this out:

    <a href="http://www.avault.com/articles/getarticle.asp?name=full 3d">The Ups and Downs of Full 3D Gaming</a>

    This entire "everything has to be in 3D" thing has already ruined more than an few games, the latest example being "The Settlers V" (which nobody outside of Germany will buy anyway).

    I sincerely hope "Advance Wars" for GC won't be that bad. Please.

  • myrmican #6 7 years ago

    I've already given up on Kuju's gamecube version. They can mutilate it to their hearts content - I'll be playing Advance Wars with a stylus ;-)

  • space_ace #7 7 years ago

    now where is alien breed with doom 3 engine?

  • Eldritch #8 7 years ago

    "I'll be playing Advance Wars with a stylus"

    Me too! Huzzah!

  • pjmaybe #9 7 years ago

    Hogs of War needs a remake..

    Peej

  • Sko #10 7 years ago

    It's hard to see how they could return to a 2D gamestyle and save face. Their only hope, it'd seem, would be to drum up some more groundswell for the old style on the two new handhelds as a backdoor way of re-introducing it.

    Then again, with everyone expecting the PSP to be a 3D-slinging PS2 in disguise, even that option might be closed to them.

  • Smiggs #11 7 years ago

    There would be no shame in doing a Worms Live! with the 2D graphics sets from Worms World Party especially if they charge say £20 for it.

    But if they want to continue their franchise to any type of sustainable level then they are going to have to think up some good variations on the theme Worms in 2d never really changed from Worms 2 onwards. I do think Worms would make good use of the DS it would remove some of the clunky menus from the 2d games

  • urban #12 7 years ago

    what has happened to team 17 *shakes head*, i blame the bosses ?

  • krudster #13 7 years ago

    I blame publishers to an extent. Team 17, along with many smaller developers have had a tremendously tough time getting any original, non franchise ideas signed. That's the real problem. T17 has a bunch of great concepts it could be working on (a remake of Alien Breed was indeed one of them), but are publishers interested? Are they chuff.

  • mingster #14 7 years ago

    I had hours of fun hacking the demo removing the time limit and enabling the hidden weapons that were disabled. I found this infinitly more rewarding than actually playing the game.

    I still reckon worms armaggedon was the pinnacle of this series.

    Just redo this simple 2D formula, with updated grafix NOT 3D! quality soundbanks and make it LIVE and system link enabled on XBOX.

    As a bonus redo exactly the same 2D game and make it work via bluetooth in JAVA on mobile phones or multiplayer over the mobile network and you've got a winner.

    Give up on the 3D for worms it doesn't work its too difficult judging the extra dimension to accurately gauge grenade and bazooka launches.
    It was work-outable in 2D even if you where half drunk. The movement and control system in 3D is baffling and to much for the normal person.
    2D side on , left right, jump plus the all important ninja rope for the elite ropers that have to be seen to be believed, and thats it.

    The extra dimension? No thank you.

  • Mr_Sleep #15 7 years ago

    "As a bonus redo exactly the same 2D game and make it work via bluetooth in JAVA on mobile phones or multiplayer over the mobile network and you've got a winner."

    They already have it in a mobile game I haven't actually downloaded it since it is five quid.

  • Artemus #16 7 years ago

    I may be in the minority but I actually thought T17 did a good job of converting Worms to 3D. Sure it lacked the instant pick up and play nature of the old 2D, but once you got use to it I was just as playable,

  • Bezzy #17 7 years ago

    I don't believe that 3D is intrinsically any lesser a tool than 2D. That said, Worms itself does owe a lot to the fact that there are only 2 dimensions to deal with. Adding another dimension creates several levels of freedom, and thus complexity, when actually, the simplicity of 2D gameplay suffices.

    I maintain that a GOOD 3D Worms-like game is not impossible, but it would have to be fundamentally different from just updating the 2D game's features into a 3D environment.

  • Killerbee #18 7 years ago

    Shame to see a once much-loved franchise take a nose dive with the transition into 3D. Worms should be the ultimate party game and for that, simplicity and quick-fire fun have to be the key ingredients. This seems to have neither.

    PS I'd love to see an Alien Breed update if anyone is listening...?

  • IronGiant #19 7 years ago

    ouch.. why waste time and money on another Worms game when in these days of blood thirsty action games they have a franchise in Alien Breed just ideal for an update. Even an Alien Breed FPS along the lines of the old PSOne Aliens game could do well.

  • skybluesam86 #20 7 years ago

    I liked Worms 3D as well. Sure, it lacked the same pick-up-and-play style of the 2D games, but once you got used to it, it was just as fun.

    There's something incredibly satisfying about bending a bazuka shot around a wall by judging the wind well to hit some sly git hiding, seemingly out of shooting range, that just isn't the same in 2D.

  • bungalooBunny #21 7 years ago

    Worms and Lemmings for me are 2D games, in the sense that there's no need for extra complication because the fun is gathering some friends around and play away.

    It's not the kind of game that needs to be immersive or elaborate, no need for complex controls or interface.

    Some games should have been left 2D... I don't get what's with this obsession about 3D, I honestly don't.

  • LFace #22 7 years ago

    Big surprise here, I said the other year when Worms 3D first surfaced that it would be crap and T17 were sellouts for redoing the game in 3D without much else new when they stated years back they wouldnt do it in 3D because it just dont work and the gameplay suffers...

    If i remember correct Spadge made a comment on this shifting his stance to save himself from the sellout badge I awarded him saying they meant they wouldnt do it because the technology wasnt available but now it was... well heres your technology Spadge - a gobshite game that suffers greatly and sucks compared to the 2D games.

    Gameplay over graphics chaps... gameplay over graphics... just remember that next time you polish up your voxel based engine to churn out another drab boring sequel that is gradually turning the Worms franchise into dirt. WWP marked the downfall that was essentially a £20 patch for W:A to change things from black to blue and make it work on Win2000/XP.

    As for the previous comments about Worms on mobiles that cost £5 - it aint worth 5p its a travesty. The AI is none existent and i think consists of code as complex as Direction=Opponent, Angle=random, Fire. Its 2 worms on each team on an almost flat landscape with just a thing in the middle sticking up which the "computer" worm likes to fire missiles at from close range thus blowing themselves up every single time. Great game...not.

  • Kurai #23 7 years ago

    So much Vitriol LFace'....seriously, calm down. If you dont like it then no one puts a gun to your head to buy it!

    Im sure you'd be ecstatic for the Worms games to have stayed in the 2D format for the rest of eternity..and youd have happily bought them extolling the beauty of 'gameplay over graphics' . But the fact is the vast majority of the game buying public would look at it, splutter 'pffft', and buy something that didnt look like an Amiga game. Its naive to call Team17 sellouts.
    I know its hard to understand for many why most developers arent all making new, innovative games anymore...(or Alienbreed sequels). Well, look at what krudster says further up the page and you pretty much have the answer. Its by and large not upto the developers anymore what they make.
    In a time when most UK outfits are living on borrowed time and getting squeezed harder and harder by the publishing giants theres isnt always the opportunity to develop high risk 'blue-sky' projects out of their own pockets and then hope a publisher will pick it up.
    Worms Forts isnt perfect by any means, but it is an attempt to take the format in a fresher direction. Criticism's fine, but the tone of your post is undeserved.

  • mingster #24 7 years ago

    Gunbound!! Someone else pointed me towards this.
    I installed it spent hours working out what the hell was going on..
    its in korean i think.
    Decided the grafix were bordering on childish/awful and gameplay was obviously like worms but totaly baffling also.
    Then uninstalled it quickly and felt almost relieved it was off my pc.

  • Aka #25 7 years ago

    4/10!! Real shame. I was looking forward to this. I liked Worms3D, sure it's hard to judge distances at first, but give it time and you'll have no problem blasting bazookas across islands and through gaps to there targets spot on. After playing the 3D version for so long and enjoying it, I reinstalled all my old copies of worms (2D) but they'd lost there appeal. Real shame this version hasn't worked :(

  • wolfen #26 7 years ago

    ManicMinerUK clinched it. It isn't easy for T17 to do anything with the franchise. 2D? Will be bashed by the press for not being innovative enough (read: WWP). 3D? Will be bashed for not working not remotely as well as the 2D games (read: the prev. two).
    My opinion? Make a RTS based on the Worms franchise in the lines of MechCommander or Starship Troopers using the 3D engine. It could work quite nicely, and the genre takes real advantage from a 3D engine. Then, release a brand new game in the side-scrolling series in 2D with a heavy payload of weapons and editors to create weapons, map schemes and everything else as one pleases.
    Edited by 1 at 28/11/04 @ 22:47

  • optimusprym8 #27 7 years ago

    I and all my buds love Worms 3D but was severely disappointed by Worms Forts. I can't believe that this went all the way through development without someone turning around and saying "Hang on, this game isn't fun! Let's scrap it and go straight to Worms:4"

    Am very much looking forward to Worms 4, Back to the old school :) (minus 2D of course...)

  • Duckers #28 7 years ago

    For some reason, I read this review after I bought the game. It starts off OK, but most of the time, the framerate stinks! And I mean STINKS!!