The wait for Worms seems to be ever-lasting. We expected it during CES, but then it was set back. Now in February, we still are yet to see the game. Now though, it seems as if it isn’t that far away, after Martyn Brown (studio director of Team 17) was interviewed by Gamertag Radio and said the game is nearly with us. He also answers alot of questions people have been dying to know for some time now.

Starting with the release date, he says that the whole certification took a lot longer than he and Microsoft had anticipated. He says the next few weeks, so it is likely that we will be seeing it before the end of February, all being well. He acknowledges the upset that has been caused, but re-iterates what so many other Arcade developers do, and says “it isn’t as simple as ‘it is done, get it out’”. I really think it should be!

The game itself is of course fully Live compatible. Four players can battle it out against one another, with the ability to taunt and tease with voice chat (something not really done before in a Worms game). The game allows you to fully name your Worms and team, something we all take for granted. Expect to see some explicit names over Live then children. One thing that you cannot do in multiplayer now is have two on two, or three on one battles. Brown says he wants a consistent game, since the Arcade is for more casual gamers. I’ve never enjoyed doing that anyway, so no problem there! There is also local multiplayer support as you would expect, with the ability to use four controllers for four players if you wish, something you couldn’t do on the Xbox. If you are short of controllers, then the sharing option is still available.

The Worms voice bank is something that has been questioned with regards to the Arcade size limit. Standing at 50MB, no-one should expect to see nearly 50 different voice options. However, Brown says that although they couldn’t fit them all in to the original game, there will be 30 to 40 downloadable voice banks after the game ships. Some will be free, and some will cost. He states that they won’t cost very much, so there is no horse armour here. Other DLC plans include, naturally, themes. And while not mentioned, gamer pictures will also likely feature. The other problem is that the game has been localised in seven different languages which naturally takes up more room.

The name and version of this Worms has been something often debated in forums. Brown states that they had originally planned to call it Worms HD, but were asked to drop the HD part (presumably by Microsoft, but he doesn’t say). He also says that the game is somewhere in between the original Worms and Worms 2, if you have to think of it like that. But of course, that doesn’t do it justice, since the game has full 720p support with lovely 3D backgrounds and “nice water”. Brown says it all looks “very tidy”.

Moving on to weapons, Brown says the weapon set is a slimmer set than what some may be used to. The weapons that had massive explosions and causing massive damage apparently corrupt the balance of play, and if you join a game of Worms for the first time without knowing what the hell is going on, you might get the wrong impression. That’s not to say that Banana Bombs and Dynamite have been removed, but I’m assuming some of the more elaborate weapons like the Carpet Bomb may have been removed. There are no new weapons available in the Arcade version, but I’m quietly hoping weapons will be downloadable after the release of the game. The creation of schemes is still an option, whereby you set your main preferences so there isn’t the need to choose the same thing in the setup menu over and over. The weapons are customisable, so you could just have a grenade war if you wanted, or just lob bazookas at each other if you’re feeling boring. Brown does state that the game doesn’t have quite as many configurable options as other PC iterations though. For anyone interested about the Rope, Brown says it functions just as it did in Worms World Party, so you can drop a weapon as you swing from platform to platform, doing your best Tarzan impression.

If you think we have been waiting a long time for Worms, then you don’t know the story. The game has apparently been in development since early 2006. Team17 had originally been approached by Microsoft in late 2004, who stated they had big plans for their new console and the online features. However, according to Brown, the timing just wasn’t right; they were already working on a few other things, so were going to let another developer develop the game on behalf of Team17. It was going to be a launch title in the November of 2005, but things didn’t work out and obviously we are still waiting for the game. Having agreed with Microsoft that an Arcade Worms would “rock”, they have been developing for pretty much a year, but the game itself has been complete since September according to Brown. The game has had to have considerable testing since then, hence why there is still nothing.

Brown says he is pleased with the response that the game has drawn. The feedback from PartnerLink has been excellent, and when Gametrailers hosted a couple of videos of the game in action, the videos were downloaded more than 100,000 times. Quite impressive for “just an Arcade title”.

As the interview begins to wind down, there is mention of possible tournaments for Worms. However, Brown feels that it is best to wait for the Leaderboards to settle down first to ensure there is no cheating by making yourself deliberately win in some way, or something along those lines. Once that is settled, then Team17 will be looking at possible tournaments.

With regards to Leaderboards, there will be the usual TrueSkill rank one, but Team17 also plan on having their own type of Leaderboard, one that tracks how many games you have played, how much damage you have done and so on. Why that couldn’t be included all in one Leaderboard I don’t know, but it will be interesting to see how much damage we have done overall.

That’s pretty much it. We have all seen the achievements, and Brown said he didn’t want to have outrageously hard ones, but ones that you would unlock as you continue to play. All the above information is taken straight from the interview, but if you do want to check it out for yourself, or perhaps listen to a couple of guys from Atari discussing Bullet Witch or maybe hear Snoop Dogg, then head over to Gamertag Radio and download the podcast.

Thanks Godfree for submitting.