Worms Armageddon

Worms Armageddon is a turn-based strategy artillery game developed by Team17 and part of the Worms series, first released in 1999 and included in the Worms Triple Pack released in 2002. The player controls a team of up to eight worms in combat against opposing teams. Worms Armageddon is one of the most successful games in the series, if not the most successful.

Gameplay
As always, gameplay is turn-based, with each team moving in sequence (which is determined randomly) across a two-dimensional terrain. During a single turn, a team can only move one of its worms (unless the Select Worm item is used). Worms can walk and jump, as well as (when the proper items are available) swing by the Ninja Rope, Parachute, Teleport, and Bungee. The objective of a traditional match is to defeat all opposing teams by killing their worms, although in the campaign some missions have other objectives (such as collecting a specific crate).

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.

Weapons
The game includes a wide variety of weapons, including melee, projectile, and explosive weapons, as well as airstrike-based attacks. Some are based on real-life arms, such as the Bazooka, Grenade, and Shotgun. Others are more fanciful and cartoonish, such as the Sheep, which serves as a mobile explosive, or the Skunk, which releases poisonous gas.

In a normal match, all teams begin with the same weapons, based on the chosen weapon set. Some weapons may not become available until a certain number of turns pass. Depending on game options, additional weapons may randomly fall onto the terrain in airdropped and teleported crates.

In addition to normal weapons, each team (during team creation) chooses a special weapon which becomes available to them after a certain number of turns. The special weapons are more powerful than regular weapons and often offer special abilities. The most powerful weapons are superweapons. Superweapons rarely fall in weapon crates. Superweapons are often based on cartoonish themes (such as the French Sheep Strike) and are usually devastating in power.

Gameplay modes
Worms Armageddon includes a series of training missions, a single player campaign with premade missions, a deathmatch mode in which the player fights increasingly difficult and outnumbered battles against the computer, local multiplayer, and online multiplayer.

Local multiplayer allows the player to select which teams participate in the battle (including number of worms and handicaps), which options and weapons are used, and the level to be played upon. The matches can use any combination of human and computer teams, provided at least one team is human. Additionally, multiple worm teams can form an alliance for the match by selecting the same team color - they will still operate separately in movement rotation but share weapons and score. If multiple human players are using the same computer, the game functions in a hotseat mode.

Online multiplayer is set up similarly to local multiplayer but allows the players to be at separate computers. Additionally, hotseat can be combined with online play, so multiple human players can use each computer.

Gameplay customization
Worms Armageddon includes a very high level of customizability - in multiplayer games or skirmishes, the player can create custom game modes with preferred gameplay options and weapon sets. Regular options include starting health, whether the worms can move, how long a turn lasts, and Sudden Death options. Weapons settings include what weapons the teams start with, which weapons will fall in crates and how often, and how powerful individual weapons are.

Other customization
Worms Armageddon offers several levels of customizability outside of direct gameplay options. Many of these options are only available in the PC versions of the game.

Team creation
The game offers players the ability to create their own custom teams. Each team has its own name and includes eight individually named worms. The player can also change the team's special weapon, grave marker, flag, victory fanfare, and voice set. In addition to numerous defaults available, the game offers the ability to import custom graves, flags, fanfare, and voices.

Terrain creation
The game includes a random terrain generator, a basic terrain editor which allows the user to create the shape of the terrain with brushes, and a more complex terrain-import system which allows the user to import custom-made terrains in image format, which the game automatically converts into playable terrains.

Speechbank creation
The game includes a speechbank editor which allows users to create their own speechbanks for their worms, many of the speechbanks come from movies & TV such as Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Toy Story, The Simpsons and many others.

Online play
Worms Armageddon features a multiplayer Internet service called WormNet. This service allows one player to host a game online and others to join it. The host can choose settings like the landscape and scheme. There is also a chat feature with an optional language filter.

From Worms (1995)

 * Beach
 * Desert
 * Farm
 * Forest
 * Hell

From Worms 2

 * Art
 * Cheese
 * Construction
 * Gulf
 * Hell
 * Manhattan
 * Medieval
 * Pirate
 * Snow
 * Sports
 * Time

New in Worms Armageddon

 * Desert
 * Dungeon
 * Easter
 * Forest
 * Fruit
 * Hospital
 * Jungle
 * Manhattan
 * Music
 * Space
 * Tentacle
 * Tools
 * Tribal
 * Urban

Community updates
After the 3.0 patch, Team17 recruited Deadcode (David Ellsworth) and CyberShadow (Vladimir Panteleev) to continue maintenance on Worms Armageddon. They have since fixed many bugs and added many features, including:
 * Extend compatibility to Windows XP/Vista/7/8
 * Allow game to run in any resolution supported by user's computer (minimum 640x480)
 * Minimize the game from the Escape menu or Shift+Escape
 * Maximum in-game worms increased to 48 (six teams with eight worms each)
 * Auto-save replays of each match to User\Games directory
 * Save PNG screenshots to User\Capture directory with Pause key
 * Option for brighter team names (for protanomalous colour deficiency)
 * Translucent worm labels with Alt+Delete
 * Display thought bubbles with T key
 * Russian localisation and Cyrillic character support

Steam version
A Steam version of Worms Armageddon was included as a preorder bonus for Worms Revolution on PC. On March 20, 2013, it was made available for purchase on its own. This version automatically updates to the latest community patch and can be used with the Steam overlay. Some soundbanks and team flags were omitted, but these are readily available online.

Trivia

 * Worms Armageddon is considered to be the best game in the series by fans.
 * The game was originally announced with the title Wormageddon, this was later changed as it was too similar to SCi's Carmageddon.