I have played Worms Ultimate Mayhem 3 hours and counting. I wanted to write this review well after Worms had been released, all of the DLC had been released, and when the modding community had really had a good opportunity to get a foothold in. Worms is an amazing game all in all. To those people who were giving this game 0's and 10's on the very first day it was released, within the first 10 minutes of playing, all I got to say is that those reviews don't help ANYONE. A game like this takes time to grow.
Gameplay
Gameplay probably features the biggest changes and improvements of the worms series. Improvements can be found from various aspects of the game, from combat, exploration, crafting and character building. Compared to Worms Reloaded, the combat is much more responsive, faster and dynamic. Enemy variation is amazing in WUM and it was often surprising to see new features and abilities added to already known enemy types. Crafting is one of the biggest and greatest part of WUM. As soon I saw the new crafting system of WUM in E3, I knew it was going to be great and sure wasn’t disappointed. With More Worms DLC you can also build your own robots, and go far as building your own kickass Sentry Bot. With the improved crafting looting and exploration became more important and rewarding. Junk rarity was also in great balance, I often found myself missing needed materials which then motivated me go out to explore the wasteland. With the new crafting system also came the settlement mode, which allowed players to create their own towns and settlements. To me the vanilla settlement mode was dull in many ways. Either way the settlement mode can a lot of fun with mods, allowing you to actually craft something genuine and incredible. The leveling and perk system was also redesigned. While there was nothing wrong with the previous system, the new system was a welcome change.
Atmosphere
In general, the atmosphere in WUM is subtler than in previous entries. Fast Food Dino felt much brighter and hopeful than the desolate Gibbon Take or Monster Bash. This is likely due to the more vibrant weathers. To improve immersion, team17 did a nice job of reducing the amount of loading screens. Abandoned towns now could be explored without having to struggle through the 5 second loading screen every now and then.
Story and Quests
I personally enjoyed the main plot, mainly because I didn’t expect much of it I got what I expected. Most of the main storyline was very good, it definitely had some memorable moments, difficult choices and the total length of the story wasn’t too bad. As for side content and quests, which were usually good but often hard to find. Radiant quests in WUM have a large role. The highly criticized voiced protagonist and the new dialogue system didn’t bother me, which did undoubtedly pose problems. But to me they were welcome changes, which felt like taking one step back and two steps forward.
Overall
While WUM did sacrifice some of its predecessors RPG elements, it still turned out to be one of the best open-world shooter that I’ve played. Worms did change for better or worse, but as for me, it’s still a Worms game, and a damn good one.