"Worms" is a fantastic game that gives you tons of value, customization, and multiplayer fun!
For people who haven't played past "Worm" games, the goal is simple: Control a little army of 4 worms and defeat the other army in a turn-based war with tons of different weapons. You play on a vast assortment of stages, that vary from a freezing mountain to the thick of a World War 2 bunker battle. Each and every stage also has 1 thing that all worms fear-water. If any worm falls in water, regardless of its heath, it drowns. Poor worms.
One thing that makes Worms: Open Warfare 2 so fun are all the cool weapons you get to use. Each weapon is unique, and I couldn't find more than 1 or 2 that I didn't think were great. You get classics like a shotgun, bazooka or bomb, wacky ones like the extremely powerful Concrete Donkey or the Banana Bomb, which splits into 5 different bananas upon contact. Some of the weapons such as the bazooka or homing missile require skillful aiming. Make sure to take the distance and wind into account with these or you may end up wasting a valuable weapon.
The best thing about this game is the customization. Never in my life have I seen a game with so many different cusomizable things. You can chance your worms names, flag, how they speak, the weapons, their grave, and you can even create a detailed stage all of your own! For some one who loves to customize, this game is heaven.
Another great thing about Worms: Open Warfare 2, is the vast amount of modes that the worm gods have blessed us with. If you want to play by yourself you have 3 main modes you can play with--Puzzle, Campaign, and Laboratory. Puzzle mode gives you a set mission that you need to do. It might be to simply defeat the enemy worms, or to get the the goal as fast as you can. Other times you might have to collect all the crates. All in all, Puzzle mode is fun and challenging to play. But even bigger and more enjoyable is the classic Campaign. In Campaign mode, your goal is to defeat the enemey worms in a variety of missions ranging from World War 1 to a battle in outer space. This mode is a blast, and is one of the best single player games. Last but not least is the Laboratory. Here you get 3 different kinds of games, each with 7 missions excusive to the DS. Each one fully ultilizes the DS' capabilties, from blowing your worm to the goal, to drawing a path so your worm won't plummet to his doom. It may not be that long, but it's fun none the less. Of course you can't forget the Custom mode, where you can customize practically everything to your liking. Pure bliss.
However, my favorite mode in Worms: Open Warfare 2 is online. Once you've connected to WiFi you can play 4 different games. You can do a random match, which is almost exactly the same as the single player quick match. The main game you'll be doing however is Ranked. It is exactly the same as a quick match, and after you're done your results get updated onto an online leaderboard. To say the least, the leaderboard is huge. You can see the top ten for tons of categories, and see your ranking. Another good thing is what happens if someone D/Cs on you. All the date so far in the match will be saved and you'll move up in the leaderboard. Further more, there's a leaderboarded for the most disconnects, so people everywhere can see who's a bad sport. But no worm battle is complete without friends, and online greatly encourages that. You can register friends with a 12 digit friend code that you automatically get the first time you log onto WiFI. After each of you have registered the others FC you can play eacther in a variety of matches. Entering friend codes is kind of tedious, but the next feature make up for it. After you've completed a match against someone online, you can add them to your rivals list. If they accept your wanting to add them, then you can play with them just as you would friends, and also see all their leaderboard data. All in all, online is the meat of the game; the only thing that would have been nice is voice chat, but no game is perfect. Of course if you don't have WiFi you can always play with friends via single or multi card play.
As for bad things, there are very few. The character models aren't that detailed, and since you'll be looking at them all the time you won't really be amazed, though they do have good animations. The other thing would be the sound, as it can be monotonous at times, annoying since each game last a while, which brings me to my last, and biggest complaint. Each game you play can last a long time, which is kind boring. Especially online, when you're forced to wait up to a minute each turn for your opponent to decide what to do. This makes the game more for people who are patient and are good at thinking ahead and making decisions rather than players who want lots of action.
So that's my incredibly long review. If you read it all then you get 100 cookies and a free plump hippo. Now for the scores:
Fun: 9
Gameplay: 9
Multi Player: 9.5
Character Graphics: 7
Backround Graphics: 8
Special Effects Graphics: 9.5
Overall Graphics: 8
Musical Sound: 8
Character Sound: 9.5
Special Effects Sound: 9.5
Overall Sound: 9
Replayability: 10
Overall: 9