Backlog 365: Day 10 - Worms

For Backlog 365 I plan on playing one game on my backlog everyday this year and write about it. For each game I will decide if I want to put it on my "Shelved" list (games that I plan to come back to and play in depth) or put it on the "Retired" list (games that I will delete or sell and move on with my life).

• January 10
• PC
• Time Played: 42 minutes

Once again, I got this game, along with a whole boatload of Worms games, in a bundle. Because, why not? However, I couldn’t remember if I had played a Worms before. I had a handle on what a Worms game was like – worms with guns shooting each other – but wasn’t sure if I had ever made those worms shoot each other. I guess there was only one way to find out.

I booted up Worms and tried to figure out how to start a game. It is striking to me how different it is now that (almost) every game has in-game tutorials. This difference becomes clear whenever I download an old PC game and try to play it without an instruction manual. But then again, those manuals didn’t always help anyway. Maybe this is the secret to the success of the Souls games – they tapped into the nostalgia of having no idea how to play a video game. Anyhow, as soon as I started playing Worms I had vivid memories of sitting in a friend’s basement playing Worms. A memory that I had forgotten (repressed maybe?). See my family didn’t have a PC for a very long time, instead we had Macs, and so it was novel to go over my friend’s house to play the various PC games I couldn’t play at home. It was weird, then, to all the sudden have nostalgia for a game I didn’t remember even playing. Kind of like how it feels when you hear a song and you know the lyrics, but don’t know where and when you’ve hear the song before.

After playing for a while, I remembered that Worms reminded me of an old game I played on that crusty Mac – Cannon Fodder. The game was simple it was two cannons that you changed the angle and power and tried to blow up the other one. In fact, after I finished my game of Worms I spent the next half-hour trying to find out if and how I could play Cannon Fodder. Sadly, I did not find the answer. I saw some bad updated imitations, but no thank you. Oh yeah, Worms. Considering that I had more desire to play Cannon Fodder than to continue playing Worms, and that the game had some technical issues running on my computer, I’m going to put this one on the Retired list.

Judgement: Retired