I didn't know much about WORMS but it has good word-of-mouth on the 'net
so I bought it. It's supposed to be a huge hit in Europe. Well, the
French worship Jerry Lewis and the Germans love David Hasslehof so take
that for what it's worth. Now we have the beloved European hit WORMS in
America.

One thing you notice immediately is that the game is in a jewel box,
like a normal music CD. I like this because it allows me to store my
games much easier. The instruction book is now the size of the liner
notes in a music CD too. I think all future PSX games are supposed to be
packaged like this.

As I usually do, I put the disk in my PSX and just tried to start
playing. It has some funny FMV to start each game but the game play
screens themselves looked very similar to the Lemmings cart I had on my
SNES. They are more colorful and they have some layered backgrounds to
simulate a 3D feel, but you're not about to throw this disk in to show
off your system. I wonder if I just threw away $48.

The gameplay itself isn't explained well by the manual either. It is a
really poorly written manual even compared to some of the crappy PSX
instruction books I have gotten. [I wish Playstaion manuals would be
written better in general. I know Nintendo manuals can seem juvenile
with Mario pointing at a button and a speach bubble saying jump coming
from his mouth, but at least it's a quick read and you can just play the
game.]

I was just left to fumble around and figure WORMS out on my own. It 
took a while to get the hang of it.

BUT WAIT... so far it sounds like this game blows but once you get into
it, it's gets really fun! 

You choose a team of four players and your goal is to be the person with
the last remaining player on screen. You can have as many as 4 teams at
once playing. You can have as many as 16 players (4 teams playing each
other X four players per team). You can also have as many of the four
teams played by the computer. You also have the options of making your
own team with a personalized name for each player.

The game looks like LEMMINGS, tiny characters on a 2-D background. The
difference is that in WORMS, those little creatures have a variety of
weapons to kill all the other little creatures all over the screen.
There are quite a few to choose from: the Bazooka, Uzi, Shotgut, Homing
Missle, Dynamite, a SF-like Fire Punch, and more. (There's an Air Strike
that can quickly turn a game in your favor if used at the right time.)
There are also a second set of "tools" to choose from if you hit the
SELECT button a second time without choosing a weapon. This selection
contains a Bungee Cord, a Nija Rope, Blowtorches, Teleport, and a few
others. These are used to get around the screen when you aren't able to
just walk there. 

You can set the options on this game many different ways but a typical
game goes like this. Player 1 has his first charater shoot at the other
team, then Player 2 has his turn where he shoots back. Back and forth
and back and forth until each player has lost his "hit" points. In a
small way, it is like a roll playing game in that fashion. (But no, this
ins't an RPG.) The last man standing wins the match! Win two matches and
you win the game.

A cool feature is where each game field is generated randomly (or it
looks like it) and you get to approve it before gameplay starts. If you
don't like it, hit SELECT before the counter reaches zero and it builds
a new screen. Or you can imput a list of letters and numbers that it
helps use to build it. The instruction manual mysteriously says to try
your "name, birthday - your pet goldfish, anything at all..." Try your
favorite curse word even!

The sound on this game is nothing spectacular. The character do have
quick little comments they make after they're hit though. Hit someone
and he may say "I'll get you!" "Leave me alone" or whatever. It's not so
much that it would be annoying.

If WORMS sounds boring, it is me not doing a fun game justice. Rent it
and find out for yourself. I think its one of the better games I've
played for the PSX.

Good Points:
-great addictive gameplay
-tons of options to customize the game

Bad Points:
-graphics aren't what is expected from a 32-bit machine
-HORRIBLY written game instructions

Rating: A-

They have two site to check out on the web. 
http://www.worms.com/game
http://www.team17.com

-- 
email to: john21@inch.com
web site: http://www.inch.com/~john21/