Rock, Paper, Shotgun

I’m a huge admirer of the gentleman’s sport of crazy golf, or as I prefer to call it, Bedlam Roughage & Greens. Combining that most elegant of pursuits with the antics of Team 17′s Worms, forming some kind of Worms Crazy Golf, seems a sensible plan and a few videos of the (mercifully) 2d title have now appeared online. It all looks very agreeable, although I hope the puzzle-type layout of the levels doesn’t mean there won’t be plenty of room for a more chaotic approach. The game is due on Steam on the 19th of this very month of October and there are several videos of golfing worms below.

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Back in 1937, a man called Andy Davidson came up with an idea. That idea was to copy a game called Artillery, but to put worms™ in it. He took that idea to the visionaries at Team 17, and from then on the world would never be the same again.

Since that day there have been over three hundred thousand games based on the Worms™ license, because when an idea is as fresh and original as Worms™, it is imperative that it be repeated as close to infinitely as is humanly possible. And when you’ve got an idea as good as that in your locker, you never need think a new thought again. But that’s not enough for some. Some strive to go further, to take perfection and refine it, reshape it, reinvent it. And so it is that Team 17 have announced Worms™: Crazy Golf.

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The recent Alien Breed series, Team 17′s episodic shooter outing based on the venerable 16-bit era titles, rumbles to a close with Alien Breed 3: Descent, which came out last week. I’ve been having a play of Descent and also looking back over the Alien Breed’s long and patchy history. Here’s wot I think…
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Poor old Team 17′s rebooted Alien Breed hasn’t had the best luck on PC, having had its thunder royally stolen by Valve’s rebooted (and, more to the point, free) Alien Swarm. Too many aliens, too many reboots happening at once. Unbowed – well, probably a little bowed, I suspect – they’re having another go, with the release and demo of Alien Breed 2: Assault. This is not the same as the original Alien Breed 2. It confuses me. I want to cry. But I also want to shoot aliens!
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I have mixed feelings about Worms. On the one hand they’re one of my favourite invertebrates, down there in the mud. But on the other, well, the game of Worms was one I was forced to play by my chums for almost a year. Every day they would come around and say “hey, is your PC on? Perhaps we could play the turn-based comedy side-scrolling tactics games, Worms?” Actually they didn’t put it like that, they just insisted that I “get worms on,” which sounds much cruder. Those brutes. Anyway, you can take it upon yourself to imagine what playing Worms for an entire year must do to a man by playing the demo for Worms Reloaded, which is available now on Steam. The full game is out too, should you wish to take the experience further.

Announced today via the medium of media is that Worms is returning. Ten years on from Worms Armageddon – which makes me feel terribly old, as I remember it being played in the office when I joined PC Gamer – it’s back and it’s on Steam. Well, it will be on Steam, upon its release on August 26th. It includes lots of game modes, 4-player multiplayer (both local and online if you don’t want everyone cramming into your bedroom to drink your vodka like we did back in 1995), level creation tool, customising your worm and… oh, more details plus the option to pre-order it with 10% off on its Steam page. The normal price? Eighteen quid. Which I suspect will make some of your eyebrows raise archly. Trailer follows…
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Aha, eagle-eyed folks will have spotted that I missed out on there being an Alien Breed Impact demo up on Steam, when I was reporting news on the renaming and such. That should allow you to discern whether the pre-order bundle, which also just went live last night, is actually worth your monies.

Alien Breed: Impact is the exciting, glossy name for the “heavily updated” version of Alien Breed XBLA remake Alien Breed Evolution that will finally make its way to the PC this summer. Team 17 have these words to say:

“Alien Breed: Impact is now tougher and requires more individual exploration than its predecessor. It features expanded customisability, with upgrades available for weapons that can be purchased using cash looted from corpses and lockers. If that isn’t enough to whet your appetite, there are enhancements to the co-operative gameplay experience for you and a shooting buddy, not to mention the “Prologue” campaign, which takes players through an updated and expanded introduction to the world of Alien Breed.”

Going to reserve judgement on this until we get our hands on it, but the original was a little disappointing – mainly because the co-op was rubbish. Hopefully “enhancements” will deal with that issue in a meaningful way.

It’s probable that younger readers won’t be particularly familiar with Alien Breed, as the last iteration in the series was a 3D version of the 2D corridor shooter, which appeared in 1996. It has taken until now for Team 17 to figure out how to make a sequel, with two projects cancelled along the way. Having eyed-up the current digital distribution book, and decided there’s a niche for them, the company has announced a self-published isometric 3D version of the game, titled Alien Breed Evolution. John Dennis, Team 17′s design manager, spoke to us about the project.
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