It’s been a long time since I’ve properly dabbled in the quirky joy of Team 17’s Worms series – 12 years to be exact. Waking up each morning to play Worms Armageddon on my N64 is a very strong memory in my mind, whether I be playing seriously or just getting a friend to grab the other controller and help stack up a bunch of worms and see where they fly when hit with a bazooka. It was a huge amount of fun that the later games just didn’t seem to capture fondly, but after a few hours with Worms Revolution, I think it may just happen this time.

Without a shadow of a doubt the appeal of the Worms franchise is comedic killing. Something about the huge grin and squeaky voices of the worms just makes watching them blew each other up with flying sheep that much sweeter. Worms Revolution seems to be taking that to heart and giving you even more ways to accidentally kill yourself and laugh at the reason why.

I’ll be honest, the 2.5D graphics of Worms Revolution threw me off, the were as 2D as possible when I played Armageddon all those years ago so seeing this had me breathing into a paper bag and hoping it wasn’t so – and technically it wasn’t. The 3D menus and fully rendered worms are all just for show really, get past that and you’ll be back in 2.5D land with the same mostly randomly-generated landscape principles as previous Worms games – except Worms 3D, Team 17 have certainly learned their lesson after that one.

What the original Worms did for senseless comical violence and silly phrases, Worms Revolution is throwing at you in droves. Worm names are not nearly as crude and ridiculous as before, but their tendency to watch a teammate crawl over their squishy heads only to wander off into the distance, drop a dynamite and misjudge their own escape into a deep pool of “drink” all while waving their arms around or grinning unconventionally as it happens just does something to make you smile right back; better yet, Matt Berry (of IT Crowd fame) is standing by to make you chuckle even more with his campaign narration of wildlife documenter, Don KeyStone.

If, like me, you thoroughly enjoyed stacking up worms and blowing them up, setting up steel girder bunkers or smacking a worm in the face and long across the ocean then Worms Revolution will certainly bring those days back into your world. With a heavy emphasis on environmental play, you’re now constantly looking for ways to use the huge every-day objects lodged into the confines of the landscape and dropping them on the smirking critters below; better yet, blow up the lighters on the ground and let the resulting embers do the job.

You want to know what’s more fun than dropping a seashell on the noggin of your own worm? Throwing a water bomb at another and watching the current sweep them into another pool. Any misfire in this game could potentially blow up an object or cause a whole load of water to leak into the map from the deposits below.

A decently sized campaign with set missions and boss modes, all with time attack built in, classic multiplayer mode, set stage Deathmatch mode and even the Forts mode from last year’s title all come in the package. And with the announcement of a season pass it seems Worms Revolution will be seeing  it’s fair share of additional content in the future.

Worms Revolution is shaping up to be a great homage to the Worms of yesteryear though with a slight increase in strategy thanks to the slightly differing worm classes and environmental play – maybe that’s why Steam are offering a free copy of Worms Armageddon to those who pre-purchase.

Worms Revolution releases on PC (Steam), Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 (XBLA) Oct 10.