The Worms franchise is weird because it has basically been the same for the last 25-years but at the same time has seen enough changes between each new entry that there are definitive "good" and "bad" versions of Worms. Bad Worms games have hard to read U.I. or a lack of options or are one of those irredeemably terrible 3D entries. Good Worms games are easy to pick up and play and figure out and give you enough options to tweak the game to you and your friends' liking. And then there are lots of in-between games, like today's entry, Worms Battlegrounds. Read more and watch gameplay here.
When Worms Battlegrounds first came out I didn't like it very much. It seemed like the A.I. took way, way, way too long to act and the game's visuals were way too busy and hard to read so you couldn't tell the difference between solid foreground objects and harmless background detail. It was just kind of hard to play. We actually recorded a multiplayer video when it first released years ago but it was so bland and we played so bad I never used it.
Compared to the newest current-gen Worms game, Worms WMD, however, Worms Battlegrounds is great. Worms WMD is a more traditional looking 2D Worms game, so you don't get confused as to what is background or foreground, but everything else is worse. The item selection menu is ridiculously tiny (it's freaking huge and easy to see in Battlegrounds) and, for whatever reason, Worms WMD has a stupid goddamn pointless annoying crafting system. You see, you can break down items you don't want in order to get materials to build items you'll actually use. WHY THE FUCK? NO ONE ASKED FOR THIS!
I initially thought I'd just play Worms WMD, because I assumed it was better than Battlegrounds. Nope. It sucks. Maybe Battlegrounds got a patch or something after release, but I genuinely didn't mind it and had a lot of fun playing it this time. I tried several matches of WMD and hated it. That all works back to my original statement in the opening paragraph - you do the same thing in all of these Worms games, but subtle changes can make a huge difference in how enjoyable they are.
