Worms World Party

Worms World Party follows on from the cult classic Worms Armageddon and in 2001 delivered the most complete package of content the series had ever offered in 2D form. Teams of immortal worms once again clash in turn-based battles on destructible terrain, armed with bazookas, holy hand grenade sheep, and dozens of other absurd weapons, but World Party adds a range of new arenas, missions, and settings that made it the definitive edition for fans of the previous installment. The turn-based system with a time limit per turn is also preserved, where the outcome of a battle is decided as much by aiming accuracy as by working with the terrain, umbrellas, and ropes.

The key new feature is a built-in mission and map editor, thanks to which players could build their own battlefields and scenarios and share them with others — at a time before the internet was widespread in households, this was a significant boost to the game's longevity. New weapons and tools were also added, along with revised balancing, a wider range of graphical terrain themes, and expanded options for customizing the appearance of individual worms, so even players familiar with Armageddon had plenty to discover. The game also supported networked play and a number of games running simultaneously on one computer, so a larger group of players could enjoy multiplayer competition at once.

The game once again comes from Team17, which fine-tuned in World Party the formula that made the studio famous, and offered it across multiple platforms at once. That's precisely why World Party long held its position as the reference version of 2D Worms for players who wanted more content than the previous installment, before the series was later pushed into the third dimension by the spin-off Worms 3D. For many fans, World Party still remains the peak of the series' classic 2D era, one that later turn-based installments only kept returning to.

Why play it: For fans of turn-based tactics with dark humor who want as much content as possible from classic Worms and also want to build their own maps and missions.