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Worms

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For individual games:


  • Audience-Alienating Era:
    • For Armageddon players, one began when instead of releasing a patch to make the game work on XP and fix the hacked and broken ranking system (which was eventually accomplished about two decades later), Team17 released the almost-the-same-as-Armageddon World Party note  and then the spin-off puzzle game Blast. Ended when Team17 hired some of the game's modders to work on updating Armageddon.
    • The three fully 3D entries — Worms 3D, Forts and 4: Mayhem — are widely seen as the nadir of the series, with many fans agreeing that the series' gameplay did not translate well to the third dimension, and even Team17 reportedly regarding the games as a failed experiment. As a result, the next couple of games went back to a similar graphical style to Worms 2 and its follow-ups, before adopting a 2.5D style that really got the series back on-track.
  • Awesome Music:
    • Of course, every game's Wormsong, lyrical (Armageddon, 3D, Reloaded) or not (World Party, Blast) are awesome to listen to.
    • Some of Worms 2's soundtrack counts, particularly "Yesterday's Hero" and Bad Boy Boggy B.
    • Worms: Reloaded features remixes of Generic, Battlezone, Forest and Outerspace. The latter in particular somehow turns the song from Armageddon into a rather somber theme.
    • When they don't come across as Nightmare Fuel, Sudden Death themes are usually this. In particular, Worms 4: Mayhem, Revolution, Clan Wars, and W.M.D themes.
  • Contested Sequel: Almost every game since Armageddon can be considered one, due to the Tough Act to Follow. There is usually no agreement, as even more contested entries tend to have fans.
    • The third generation, starting with Open Warfare and ending with Battle Islands. This collection of entries is either a much needed return to the basics after extremely divisive 3D games or way too simple to be chosen over previous titles. Fans of the second generation in particular have an easy time dismissing those games due to how different the physics are.
    • The fourth generation, starting with Worms Revolution. Are they an ugly and gimmicky mess, or a creative breath of fresh air that is deeper than the third generation before them?
    • Worms Rumble, despite being a Spin-Off, is perhaps the most divisive. It received a lot of flak for playing nothing like a usual Worms game with many feeling that it was created just to capitalize on the Battle Royale boom, with this being especially prevalent on announcement and continuing after launch. After being released for a while though it has since earned a lot of defenders who do agree it is Worms In Name Only, but still find it incredibly fun and delightfully chaotic.
  • Game-Breaker: The Homing Air Strike from Worms 2: an Air Strike of Homing Missiles. That means it is incredibly easy to One-Hit Kill enemy worms (assuming the standard ruleset where worms have 100 HP) with a Homing Air Strike as a result, as you don't have to deal with the missile spread of a regular Air Strike. The Homing Air Strike, alongside the less deadly but still very effective Homing Cluster Bomb, are notably few of the weapons from Worms 2 to not make it to Armageddon and World Party (they appear in the GBA version of the latter, however).
  • Good Bad Bugs:
    • In the first game, having an almost invincible worm for one turn or shooting explosives with the Uzi is fun.
    • In the second, the secondary explosions of a cluster bomb spread out from slightly below the initial detonation. Placing one directly on top of an enemy worm will cause them all to blow up simultaneously, all but guaranteeing kill. The same principle works with a Banana Bomb as well, for truly obscene levels of overkill.
  • It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: The reason why games are split into "generations" is because a lot of them can be described as "same as the previous game but with a few additions". This aspect of the franchise was heavily criticized and became one of the reasons why the series took nearly a decade-long break between Worms W.M.D and Worms Across Worlds, with only a spin-off Rumble releasing between them.
    • World Party had this reception towards Armageddon, with the Wormpot, Forts, and multiplayer missions basically being the only mechanics present in the former but not the latter.
    • World Party Remastered repeated this. Not only had Armageddon been receiving several patches through the years, to make it compatible with modern systems and by adding or polishing features, giving World Party Remastered tough competition in the first place, but there's the matter that the vast majority of those improvements and new features weren't present in World Party Remastered, giving it an even worse reception than the original.
    • Some think this way about third-generation (2006-2011) as a whole. While Open Warfare, the first game in this line-up, was a return to 2D and a breath of fresh air, the games following it had pretty much identical graphics and physics, while weapons selection was barebones in comparison to both second generation and 3D installments. This is also the generation that had the most entries released for it at seven, whereas other generations rarely get further than three, though this is mitigated by them being spread near-evenly across multiple platforms.
  • Most Wonderful Sound: Some of the sounds that play when using certain weapons:
    • The "Hallelujah" choir that plays just before the Holy Hand Grenade blows up or as the Concrete Donkey falls.
    • The "Charge" jingle that plays when a worm struck by the Baseball Bat flies off the map.
    • "La Marseillaise" plays during the French Sheep Strike as a nice accompaniment to the epic destruction. The same anthem was used for the Nuclear Bomb in Worms 2 before being recycled for the French Sheep Strike in Armageddon, which is why it has that Letting the Air out of the Band ending: the anthem would play before being interrupted by the bomb going off.
    • Tucking a cluster bomb or, even better, a banana bomb beneath a worm, causing all of the clusters to detonate on the hapless fool and making a rather satisfying explosion sound.
    • Trapping a group of enemy worms in a pit or against a wall while showering them with fire gets you a cacophony of pain noises, depending on their soundbank. "Oop! Ow! Ack! Aie! Ouch! Oww! Oi! Yow! Argh!"
    • For Russian players, the Russian voice bank that goes "Прыжок!" with every jump.
  • Nightmare Fuel:
    • Sudden death in second generation games can be quite spooky, especially if it involves a nuclear strike making all the worms sick, because in that case a more frantic soundtrack plays, complete with blaring sirens and the occasional sounds of a clicking Geiger counter as well as shuffling reminiscent of marching in the background. Made even worse as the falling background objects that float in the direction of the wind turn into skulls that morph back and forth between that and a mushroom cloud.
    • Armageddon and World Party both have the aptly named "Hell" music track that involves crackling fire and screams of the damned being tortured (complete with the repeated sound of bones being broken) along with the maniacal laughter of the demons doing so, that or the tortured having become Laughing Mad.
    • Flockers stands out amongst the series for its Darker and Edgier take on the general franchise.
      • Imagine your life as a sheep, you normally graze away at a grass living a happy, peaceful, life, then the worms kidnap you and your kin to be used as nothing more than a living, disposable, suicide bombers to use against their opponents. While prior games are considered goofy fun, Flockers is basically the opposite and a deconstruction on what happens if an innocent gets dragged into becoming a one-use weapon.
      • The gory violence that is present will definitely catch first time Worms players off-guard, especially if they have gotten used to bloodless comedy that borders on slapstick that is considered the norm. You won't see any worm (or any animal) get bloodily splattered, with eyeballs and guts flying out whenever they are killed.
  • Obvious Beta: The Nintendo DS version of Open Warfare has several problems that point to it being a rushed job: simplistic menus, buggy worm and weapon physics (e.g. worms can force themselves under another when walking uphill, grenades/cluster bombs never come to rest, numerous problems with the ninja rope), graphical and audio glitches, and a broken AI.
  • Quirky Work: Certainly is one, given its premise about warring worms who at times use the weirdest weaponry possible.
  • Scrappy Mechanic:
    • If your worm stands too close to a wall and you try to jump towards it, or even jump while standing on an arguably steep hill, your worm may instead bounce off of it and jump in the opposite direction, most likely accidentally killing or harming your worm.
    • If your worm takes any damage during their turn, their turn ends immediately. This includes instances where they fall far enough that they plant into the ground. Compounding this issue is that you don't have an explicit way of gauging what will get you a safe landing and what will become a strategic blunder.
  • Scrappy Weapon: Suicide Bomber in Armageddon (renamed to Worms Blast in World Party Remastered). For a weapon that kills your worm, it does a pitiful amount of damage and the poison gas cloud it releases is really small and affected by the wind so it's unlikely to even hit anyone. This weapon is bad even when taken on its own but it's also completely outclassed by the Skunk which does the same amount of damage but also moves, releases a continuous stream of poison gas and doesn't kill your worm. Unlike the Kamikaze, using this weapon also triggers the "self harm" quotes from enemy worms.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
    • Going 3D. Worms 4 Mayhem is generally considered the only exception to this, even getting an Updated Re-release.
    • Some players feel the series peaked with the Reinforcements/United expansion and are very frustrated that the first generation games are unplayable on modern machines without resorting to emulation with DosBOX and the like while Armageddon, thanks to updates, is easily playable even on Windows 10.
    • Third-generation games tweaked some of the core gameplay, and are highly controversial installments among old fans, especially Reloaded. In particular, the revised Ninja Rope mechanics are unpopular as they feel too different from before and no longer allow to do insane tricks that were possible in second-generation games.
    • Revolution changed lighting from Reloaded to do damage instead of healing a worm it was targeted at. This can be very confusing if you played Reloaded prior and expected it to work the same way in other games.
  • Tough Act to Follow: Whenever a new 2D Worms game comes out, it will be invariably compared to Armageddon, usually unfavorably. The reasons range from the physics being too different to be as enjoyable as second generation entries (which Armageddon is a part of) to feeling like Team17 have been trying to remake Armageddon to varying degrees of success. Reloaded and W.M.D, both being released on PC, the platform that had Armageddon readily available, got this particularly hard, though the latter was able to recover. It rarely reaches Sacred Cow levels though due to most fans thinking each Worms game does bring something new to the table and are incredibly fun in their own right.
  • Unintentional Period Piece:
    • Some of the weapons from 2 and Armageddon, such as the Nuclear Bomb, the French Sheep Strike, and the Mad Cows, contain references to various events from the mid to late 90s, such as French and Indian nuclear testing, strikes in France, and the mad cow disease outbreak.
    • Many of the fanfares have not been updated since 1997's Worms 2, and that includes those based on national anthems. For instance, the Russian fanfare uses their 1990s anthem that was replaced in 2000 as recently as 2016's Worms W.M.D.
  • Values Dissonance: Certain aspects of the second-generation games can pretty easily come off as culturally insensitive (the Kamikaze voice bank and associated weapon, the The Raj voice bank, the Indian Nuclear Test) and would absolutely not fly in a new release. Tellingly, when Armageddon and World Party Remastered were released on Steam and GOG, a lot of this content was either renamed or stripped out altogether.

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