In Progress AAR: Worms Reloaded

[AstralStorm]

Ok, so once Epic McIncline is gone, for reinforcements you can use Urist McStorm.

 

[Erebus]

Yay, my worm is the longest-surviving ! Though he's going to have a hard time killing more enemies than McJack.

 

[Urist McLurker]

Yet again I change the sound bank, the only one I've kept longer than a round has been Cyber Worms, which is one of the old ones.
What I'm saying is that the new sound banks are shit.

Oh, alright.

It's very damn difficult to take screenshots when swinging around like spiderman on crack.

I remember being able to ninja rope like a pro was actually a skill to gain, here the rope lengths are so long that even though I've barely ninja roped for four years, I'm having no difficulty with this at all.

Ow. I fell then.

Ow.

Ow. I don't know why I'm having such a hard time here, it's fucking easy as shit, but I just can't seem to manage it.

Ow. I've spent more time cocking this up then I have on the rest of the course.
If this was Urist McJack, I bet we'd be having no difficulties.
That's right Son of Sam, I'm blaming you and not me.

Yeah that's right, you better make it this time.

I managed to drop directly into the teleport and it's time for an actual mission.

I effortlessly hop across the crenellations and start back flipping up past the oil drums.

I remember puzzles that came up in past worms games. The puzzles were working out the best way to take care of the enemy worms with what you had on you and could get.
What I'm basically saying is that a linear puzzle with a single way to complete it that takes the most mild of skill and ability to complete is less of a fucking puzzle than an actual battle.

OH DEAR WOE IS ME IT LOOKS LIKE I AM GOING TO DIE.
Of course not. The screenshot was just badly taken. I grab the box +1DYNAMITE
HURR DUUR WUT I TO DO

I uh, missed. . . the dynamite landed next to me rather than them, but I managed to save Sam from death..just now I'm trapped.

I feel you bro, I feel you.
I've got no choice but to

I make slightly better time on the restart
Mainly because I'm not taking screenshots.

Let's not fuck it up this time.

There.

Maybe if you had to make the drop from fucking miles away, and you weren't allowed to hit them, but only the oil drum to kill them.
And it was with a shotgun or something.
Without the laser sight.
...Oh whatever.

Overkill? Thy name is Son of Sam.

Oh the tackyness, it hurts.

See the n next to 22 seconds on the timer? That's a M from Sam. Worst screenshot yet, but what I do is use the wind to push a shot from a bazooka..

Right behind Whistle, putting his ass down. Which might've killed him, but for the sake of both safety and overkill, I made sure he landed on the mine.

like I said, shit like that makes you feel so badass.

Oo-er.

Oh neat, a petrol bomb, something I will never use.
I opt for the jetpack

Which I use to blow up the mine, and then forget there's a fucking limit on the flight that burns through like.. like wood should be burnt.

Looks like it's over for H-overurist.
..
Actually he survived, for once the AI fucked up a grenade shot(!?!??!)

Ereburist takes care of Tackle with a shotgun.

Fuck you, fuck you guys. Just to rub it the fuck in the AI finishes off Hoverurist in the most minimal way possible.

Dealing just barely enough damage to kill him.
A horrible way to die for a worm.

I cocked up the ninja roping for Son of Sam, ending my turn.
Bugger.

AI decides to dragonball his ass.

Ereburist ninja-pros across the map which is so easy it makes me feel worse for fucking it up last turn.
And uses that dynamite.

The AI uses a shotgun on Ereburist and gets into a hole and skips the rest of his turn.

Son of Sam finishes off Scrum.
And gets fuck'ed by Ruck.

Ereburist ninja ropes his way down

And kills Ruck.

Kills: 2 for Son of Sam, 2 for Ereburist.
Deaths: Hoverurist.

 

[SerratedBiz]

That psycho worm is really going to town. Well done.

 

[AstralStorm]

Oh the garish colors! Next time, better hunt hedgehogs instead.

 

[TripJack]

will never be another worm like lucky jack

McJack Jr. reporting for duty.

 

[Urist McLurker]

Since I lost my saves I'm going to simply just play up to where I got to before and carry on.
Barring anything going terribly wrong, expect the next update tomorrow, or even later today.

 

[Urist McLurker]

This seemed like the most fitting song, given how durrh the AI went in this update.

'Play dirty' Game, there's only one way Son of Sam knows how to play, and I think dirty is an understatement.

Two shotgun blasts send from the top of the oil drum, which could only be more fitting if the oil drum had exploded into flames and we were using a handgun.
Though I am upset that I couldn't make a Jack the Ripper joke about killing a 'hooker' or something.

Sometimes I'm amazed by how stupid the AI can be. That was one hell of a foul.

I know the game set this up to be done like this, but still, it felt good putting Trip into the mine.

'Did you have a good fall?'

Pity there's nothing we can do with our remaining shot, so ITZ bunker is created.

A perfectly aimed bazooka shot, ruined, by the fucking ground in the way. Son of Sam is right the fuck there, and you decide to attack Dexter even though he's at least three bazooka shots away from damaging?

Ereburist uses a sheep to finish the moronic worm off.
..

..Surely getting a red card for that.

Here's the pneumatic drill being used to by Son of Sam to make a way down to the second level of the map.

He jumped down there and I used a bazooka to putt the mine onto him

With expected results. That was one hell of a slam dunk.

Huh. Interesting.

I. Uh. Got stuck.

Took some fall damage getting free.

Missed taking a screenshot of the sentry guns on my way down, but look at this! An actual danger! What's going on!?

There's the sentry guns, very badly took, but there you are. If you've played portal, they're basically like the turrets from that, except they don't talk.

Short update I know, but I had such a hard time getting this one done that a short one was all I could manage.
Massive of the AI, whom I think managed to fuck up every single turn of theirs. I don't think we took any damage in that match.
of the puzzles though. Interesting.

 

[dextermorgan]

Son of Sam is right the fuck there, and you decide to attack Dexter even though he's at least three bazooka shots away from damaging?

He knew where the real danger lies crawls.

He jumped down there and I used a bazooka to putt the mine onto him

It might be better to roleplay larp worm characters.

 

[Urist McLurker]

It might be better to roleplay larp worm characters.

Agreed completely.
The problem is that every single worm is literally one turn away from dying, one AI-golden shot and the worm is dead without notice, there's been a few examples of this already. I can't see how it's possible to have characters when they can die every turn, and are then replaced by another worm, who'll then have to have a different character from the worm who just died, only to suddenly die that very same match. Unless I play much further ahead than I'm updating so I can make sure to create a larp story for the worms who aren't going to die straight away, but in that case you'll know which worms will live 'Well that guy there has a red shirt and no speaking role, but James T. Kirk here has at least 80 lines each update. Gee, I wonder who's about to die.'

Then if I keep the worms having the same 'character', I might as well not replace them, which(for me) defeats the whole point.
Not that I've given it any thought, or anything.
I've been pondering over whether or not I take the whole, AAR thing further, larping from the point of view of the worms discussing/looking back upon the missions, rather than from the pov of the worms actually playing, which would work much better, but I'm still not completely sure how it would work.

It's difficult because the combat is very quick, most matches lasting roughly as long as it takes to read the update for them, if not quicker. The worms are only able to take two or three hits at best, one hit at worst, before dying. It makes it very difficult to capture screenshots so I have to fill in the blanks, which, I believe, makes for crappy reading. But to be honest, the reason I picked Worms as an LP/AAR was because of how un-LPable the game actually is. I might be making excuses here, but trying to screenshot a moment that you weren't sure was going to happen at all, and you only have one chance to screenshot, and you have a couple seconds to do it ain't easy. A good example would be how Trip was killed in the last update, I tried to take the screenshot of him flying over Sam's head. Twice, I restarted to try and get the screenshot because it was the first turn, and both times I failed, and the puzzle in the last update, trying to fly the jetpack within a time limit when there's sentry guns and water, when if you die it's ironman death for the worm, and then taking a screenshot of the mildly interesting moment is a bitch to do.

Unless I metagame the shit out of it, I don't see how I can do it, any and all suggestions completely welcomed with open arms. There's a lot of campaign missions to do so experimenting isn't an issue.

 

[dextermorgan]

Well, extended LARPing would probably be detrimental, especially to your stamina. Injecting a little character and perhaps going a little over the top in describing their feats/demise, on the other hand, should make it more fun. Maybe have a look at one of XCOM - TFTD LPs for example of high casualty squad based game?

If your having trouble capturing the action perhaps you could use fraps to capture video of the match and then screenshot from that? I know it sounds cumbersome but with matches this short it might actually be easier.

IMHO

 

[Urist McLurker]

Aye, I tried FRAPs at the start but I had a hard time doing the video capturing, for some reason FRAPs was being a pain in the ass. I'll fiddle with the settings and see what happens.

I'll take a look at one of those LPs, cheers.

 

[dextermorgan]

Fraps hiccups can be caused by running a capture on the scratch disk. Try saving the capture file on a separate disk, or a fast USB drive. I hope you'll have fun reading those LPs, I sure as hell did.

 

[Urist McLurker]

For the advise, always very welcome. Hopefully being able to get the perfect screenshots via video will make doing the actual LP from a story point-of-view easier. Like I mentioned, been a case of struggling with what I could get. Shall be experimenting tonight.

 

[Urist McLurker]

Alright. Mission 16 here we are, we've lost just over a third of our worms. It's two against five, which is of the difficulty.
Twenty minutes on the match, 30 seconds per turn, and it's Son of Sam's time to shine commit mass murder.

( It took me just over ten seconds of fucking around to get the ninja rope out which really limited what I could do)

Son of Sam knows what he's doing; he's on a mission from God the Demons.

Son of Sam is getting ready to become a household name, at least, for the world of sport.

Having just set a dynamite next to Ruck, a skillful ninja rope down slamming his face into the boot causes no fall damage. But has landed him surrounded by enemies.

Thanks to Ruck, Tackle's area becomes a ruck after Ruck tackles Tackle who hits his Tackle though thankfully he doesn't end up as tackle as he leaves the ruck with Ruck. (????)

But Son of Sam ain't finished yet, he's done some killing, it's time to do some arson.

Damn fucking right he does.

First turn of the match ends with a total of 129 damage and one death. That's what you call first blood.

Hooker takes two shots outta Son of Sam, shooting Trip for just 5 damage on the second shot.

Oh and ironically Son of Sam lands in his own flames.

Dexter ninja ropes over too, and kills Scrum and then pro shots tackle

who drowns to death, a double kill for Dexter.

Son of Sam gets dragon balled in the face and gets shoved onto his last legs. This is what happens when you play loose and reckless.

Speaking of reckless. A miss timed sheep ends up with Son of Sam flying across the area

And survives. With 5 hp , finishing off the round with another double kill.
Whole match didn't even last two minutes(1 minute and 37 seconds I think it was). Dexter didn't get take any damage. of Diversity.

Would be a longer update, but I had so many issues with everything, the next one will be longer by far now I know how to take the update.

 

[Erebus]

Very nice ! You certainly didn't leave the enemy team time to do much.

 

[Urist McLurker]

Seven against two, they've got 50hp, and we've got 125.

Son of Sam quite literally springs into action.

Woah déjà vu.

Woah déjà vu.

A very difficult to pull of dynamite drop next to Tackle, and Son of Sam bails. This appears to becoming a tread. Though he does damages his sorry ass this time.

Woah déjà vu.
That was 148 damage this time. Somebody is good at killing. (the oil drum pushed Scrum but didn't damage the bastard)

A mine in Dexter's face thankfully doesn't do the full 45..

Dexter flies up and does something completely and utterly unheard of. Not using a shotgun to kill a worm when you can.

troubles'a'brewin

Son of Sam's going to start taking a beating down there.

Which is why he comes up here. And uses. AN ELECTOMAGNET!

... M:Killing directly is for the weak.

That's right, skip your go, you know you can't do fuck all against such a grand defense from there.

Dexter might be the master of double kills, but you can see it in his eyes, he wants more death.
After spending literally 10 seconds lining the shot up perfectly.

Bang, and the sentry gun is off. Note how very slightly the oil drum has been moved, it's pushing that back.

Aw shit, don't come this way.

6 damage!? Goddamn it, look at Hooker there. Just look at him, he's right next to a worm directly above the sink, he's got 10hp, and Dexter had another shot.
That would have been a triple kill. Damn you Trip (POETICALLY JUST NAME)

Yup, that's all you can do with the magnet there. No nigh-impossible fucking grenades for you now son.
Speaking of, Son of Sam gets a double kill finishing off what Dexter started.

Everything is going according to plan, they'll fail against the magnet again, and Dexter can finish off with another double kill.
Egad, what's that? Just out of screen? A third worm? THEY HAVE A THIRD WORM!?

Oh wait. Nevermind.
You can always count on the AI.

I shall start using those..emoticons for the AI, they have proven they deserve nothing better.

Son of Sam and Dexter McLeod are becoming a good team. 3 kills each.

Right..

The fuck is this. An actual fucking puzzle in my Worms Reloaded?
What the fuck is going on.

SoS teleport down to Ruck

I, uh, forgot how to rotate the girder. But because reality doesn't like this LP, I failed to get a proper shot of the map to start with, so here you are. It's a thing, certainly.
Just not sure what kind of thing it is.

SoS teleports back up and firepunches the mine, which sails through the air thanks to the magnetism below it.

Which is really difficult to show without loads of screenshots, but I think I managed it a bit.
See the girder? If that was slanted, it would've been perfect.

It, uh.
Didn't do anything anyway.

The magnet down there pulls the mine directly onto to Ruck(after bouncing around like a rabbit on a sugar-rush) and it blows up.

So wait.. the girder didn't need to be used? Wow, a multiple choice puzzle in a worms game? The sky is falling people, run for your lives.

Still completely against these puzzles, but at least they're getting more difficult and require more thought than just holding down the awesome button, unlike before.

 

[Urist McLurker]

Ereburist you're back! Started to think there was only Dexter and Sam in the squad.

Son of Sam takes a gander at the armoury.

Nearly getting shot repetitively by that sentry that he didn't spot, Sam finally gets a bazooka out and proves why he's the leader.

Sam fails at a trick shot?! What the fuck, 10 hp off!? Goddamnit man.
Okay. Prepare yourselves. Son of Sam manages a good trick shot that he fucked up, but still, a total of 75 damage with a bazooka from a shot like that ain't bad. Here's what the AI does.

You can always count of them for being a moron.

FUCK! SAM NO!

Fucking fuck. AI you bastard, you tricky fucking bastard. What the fuck.
That shot. That fucking shot. That fucking shot, jesus fuck, that was beyond words.

I believe Dexter McLeod has just shat himself.

Yup. Dexter's safe. Ish.
Ereburist, it looks like you're fucked.

The cogs start turning and Ereburist comes up with an idea.

Truly a tactical genius.

The AI returns back to form by blowing up their own sentry.
I think it was aimed at Ereburist.

Alright Dexter, time for revenge eh?

One kill for sure, hoping for two. Knowing Dexter and his epic ability to double kill, it'll be a two.

Two can play at the pro game.

'Come at me bro, come at me'

Oh. What the fuck. Look at that. LOOK AT THAT. I call hack. That's just. Fuck me.

Time for Ereburist's plan to be put into motion. He lines up his ninja rope so he can get outta dodge as soon as possible.

Ereburist stays nearby just in case it doesn't work, but thankfully it does.

Having used up dynamite earlier on, and having limited faith in the ability of sheep, the Squad decides on an...unorthodox weapon.

The Buffalo of Lies(In Worms lore, the Donkey is like God of the Lightsiders(Worms players who fight fair on open ground), and the Buffalo is the god of the Darksiders(Worms players who don't fight fair on open ground)) runs like a sheep but doesn't bounce, once he finds something he can't run over, he blows up, and another one is spawned in his place. 'Each' buffalo does 30damage.

Slab falls flat with some concrete shoes.

We can't stop here, this is bat country.

Dexter's turn, and he is pissed.

Wait..

The bunker buster..We found out that it blows up at the target and digs through ground on that difficult as fuck mission 31 right? We can set it to blow right at Nail Gun, blowing up the terrain from under him and pushing him right into the drink.
Dexter you crafty bastard this is perfect.

Just in case, Dexter aims it slightly to the left, so it'll surely push Nail gun into the drink.

...
...
...
Well. Shit.

He's got a grenade, and Dexter has 7hp. We all know where this is going.

Thankfully the AI has aimed for Ereburist! He ought to survive right? Hold on in there McZilch.

'8'
What do you mean '8'

...DEXTER NO! NOT THE A TEAM!

Fucking die.

Ereburist 'The Survivor' McZilich is the only survivor. The squad is assigned to mission codename '20', but without the A-team, how will they do?


Fuck.

 

[Erebus]

My worm is the Highlander !

And wow ! it really hurts a lot when the AI starts using its inhuman skillz. It can pull off some crazy shit, especially with the help of a strong wind.

 

[DraQ]

Am I the only one thinking that the best Worms were Worms 1?

Never really liked the cartoony graphics from 2 onwards.

 

[dextermorgan]

My own fault for messing up that BB shot. Oh well, sign me up again when it's rotation time as Vlad The Impaler.

 

[Urist McLurker]

Everything about that shot was beyond perfect, including where Sam was, he should have jumped away or closer or something, and he would have lived. Stayed in the perfect danger zone..

I always felt that the cartoony graphics helped, I wouldn't go as far to say that I like them, but I think it helps the atmosphere of the game, which I feel is more arcadey and cartoony. I think it was a brand choice sadly.

Ten more missions to do, 7 worms left, anyone else wanting to be wormed, it would be very welcomed. I reckon we'll be getting 2 deaths a match at least from 25+

 

[dextermorgan]

I didn't play worms that much, but I do remember that one time I was playing with a friend and managed to pull off a shot like that. His worm was on one side of the map, tucked away under a ledge and waiting for timeout victory since he had more health left. Mine was on the opposite side, stuck and unable to get closer.

I managed to slam that bazooka right up his ass with some good wind. He raged so hard.

 

[betamin]

Beta McMin at your service sire. Good with a dragon punch.

 

[AstralStorm]

More! Also, would love to see incline in action (and dying horribly afterwards)