Worms 2

Worms 2's graphics are radically improved from the first Worms game. This screenshot is of Worms World Party, but the visuals are nearly identical.

Gameplay is turn-based, with each team moving in a randomly determined sequence across two-dimensional terrain. During a single turn, a team can only move one of its worms. Worms can crawl and jump, as well as swing by ninja-rope, parachute, teleport, and bungee when the appropriate items are available. The objective of a traditional match or campaign mission is to defeat all opposing teams by killing their worms.[1] Each worm begins the round with a specific amount of health which is predefined by the chosen game options or by scripting in campaign levels. When hit with a weapon, the worm will lose health depending on the power of the weapon and the directness of the hit. A worm can be killed either by having its health reduced to zero or being knocked into the water around and below the level.[2]

Worms 2 is primarily played in multiplayer mode. In this mode, the player selects a team to control, as well as one to five other teams, all opposing each other; those teams may be controlled by the computer or other players. A total of only no more than 18 worms may be present on any level. Each team placed in the roster begins with an equal number of worms, each with an equal amount of specified health. The player determines how many rounds a team must win in order to win a match.[3]^:19–21 Multiplayer mode is played either on a single computer or on a local network or the Internet involving up to six computers.[3]^:31–21 In the case of the latter, the ability to draw a round or force sudden death early is disabled.[3]^:7 In addition to quickly starting a game without setting up options,[3]^:5 the player can also opt to complete single-player missions in order. The player first chooses a difficulty level, and completing one mission gives the player a password for the next. The player can use these passwords to continue where they left off.[3]^:30

The game includes a wide variety of weapons, including melee, projectile, and explosive weapons, as well as air-strike-based attacks. Some are based on real-life arms, such as the shotgun, bazooka, and hand grenade. Others are more fanciful and cartoonish, such as the sheep, which serves as a mobile explosive.[4] In a normal match, all teams begin with the same weapons, based on the chosen weapon set. Some weapons may only be available after a certain number of turns have passed. Depending on game options, additional weapons, such as mortars or cluster grenades, may randomly fall onto the terrain in air-dropped crates. On rare occasions super weapons will fall in weapon crates.

The game offers players the ability to create their own custom teams. Each team has its own name and includes eight individually named worms, and the player can also change or create the team's voice set.[3]^:19–20 The game includes a random level generator[5] and a basic level editor which allows the user to create the shape of the level with a brush.[3]^:26–27 Instead of only islands, levels may also be caverns, which have an indestructible ceiling and disable all air strike-based weapons.[6]

Worms 2 includes both weapon and option editors, each offering a very high level of control over many game-play and weapon settings. Option settings include worm retreat time, wind strength, fall damage and sudden death land sink rate. Weapon settings include the initial stock each team begins with in a match, the explosion bias, the amount of damage the weapons deal, their interaction with the wind and the time within which the worm can retreat after use.[7]^:22

Worms 2 was confirmed to have been in the works since at least April 1996.[8] It was at first meant to be a sequel to the original game, where the only substantial improvements were a new engine and supported online play. However, Andy Davidson, the creator of the Worms franchise, felt that the aforementioned improvements would not be enough to make the sequel worthwhile, and he also wanted to bid a farewell to users of the Amiga, whose support and popularity had recently all but waned. To do this, Team17 allowed him to spend his time working on Worms: The Director's Cut, an expansion pack to the original designed for late Amiga computers. The two simultaneous Worms projects each had their own separate team. Whilst The Director's Cut would become the last Amiga software by Team17, aside from graphical and memory improvements, it introduced a new level editor and additional weapons such as the Concrete Donkey. Those new features formed the basis for Worms 2, and would appear in later titles of the franchise.[9][10]

Worms 2's graphics and style were Team17's priority. The company believed that the original Worms' dated graphics deterred the game's potential players. They opted for the technically better SVGA graphics, and because of memory limits had limited the game's release to only Windows. Danny Cartwright and Rico Holmes were the game's artists. Cartwright was responsible for its animation. To do this, he used Photoshop, but later in development he used Cambridge Animation Systems' ANIMO, a spline-based animation software. It took as many as 14,000 frames to draw the worms, and it was estimated that continuing to use Photoshop for the sprites would have required three to four years. In comparison, it took merely months to master ANIMO, and after that the worms were tested five or six times before they were determined to be complete. Holmes was responsible for the game's themes, including their landscapes and background. These were sketched before they were digitally scanned. Holmes said that each of the game's twelve themes took about one month before being finalised. He has also described the visual style as being a "very clear-cut cartoon style"—something at odds with his preferred general style.[11]

The soundtrack was composed by Bjørn Lynne. The instruments used are synthesisers, a guitar, and a bass guitar.[12] The game's lead programmer was Karl Morton,[3]^:39 who produced the engine.[13]^:62 Cris Blyth was responsible for the full-motion cutscenes – which are cel-shaded unlike the original game's cutscenes[14] – and along with Andy Davidson and Matiné Studios provided the voices for the worms' speech banks.[3]^:39 Worms 2 was released on various days across Europe in November 1997, and in North America on 13 January 1998.[15] It was later rereleased on GOG.com on 5 September 2012, with the only difference being that online play is disabled.[16]

Worms 2 launched in Europe with a shipment of 200,000 units to retailers.[21] In the United States, PC Data reported sales of 68,396 copies for Worms 2 during 1998, which accounted for $1.87 million in revenue.[22]

Worms 2 received generally very positive reviews, being praised for the addictive gameplay. Trent Ward of GameSpot described the physics as being "minute-to-learn-lifetime-to-master", and cited that as the reason for the game's addictiveness.[17] The humour has been characterised as exemplifying the "superiority theory", where the humour is derived from the fact that inexperienced players often hurt their own worms unintentionally.[23]

The game's new visuals were largely well received upon release.[7][17][20] Przemysław Jędrzejczyk of Gambler praised the visuals as well as the sound effects, saying that they brought "a lot of life" to the game.[13]^:95 Andy Martin of PC Zone also thought that the higher-resolution graphics gave the game "character", although it complained about the limited field of view and the inability to zoom out.[6] Conversely, Laurent Sarfati of Joystick criticised the visuals as being cute and the worms' animations as being "tasteless" and "for snotty 3- to 6-year-olds."[19] The visual style would reappear in two subsequent sequels: Worms Armageddon and later Worms World Party. The style continues to retrospectively receive critical acclaim due to its association with Worms Armageddon, normally considered the best title in the Worms franchise.[24]

In 1998, PC Gamer declared it the 30th-best computer game ever released, and the editors called it "a funny, original, and thoroughly addictive combination of action and strategy".[25] On its "Game of the Century" column, PC Powerplay ranked it the 42nd-greatest game for its variety of weapons, and considered it as a contender for the best multiplayer game of all time.[26] The editors of PC Gamer US named Worms 2 the best turn-based strategy game of 1998. They wrote, "Worms 2 serves as evidence that sometimes a genre's salvation can be found in the unlikeliest of places." It was a finalist in the magazine's Best Multi-Player Game category, which ultimately went to Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six.[27] It was also a runner-up for IGN's Best Online Game of the Year award in 1998.[28]

• Official website at the Wayback Machine (archived 12 October 2009)
• Worms 2 at MobyGames