Theme - Worms (PC)

It's the time of the year when the days get shorter, retailers stay open longer, big games are released and there seems to be a holiday every other week. Defunct Games wants to ring in this festive season with a look at the most memorable video game themes of all time. For five weeks straight, Cyril Lachel and Kevin Bailey will share their thoughts on themes from the last thirty years. Join us every day between November 22 and December 25 for The 34 Game Themes of Christmas!
Worms
[ Company: Team 17 | Year: 1995 | Console: PC ]
Synopsis: Like the idea of blowing up your enemies, but don't want to go to war with real human beings? Then Worms is the perfect alternative. This long-running turn-based action game sees players waging all-out war on small worm platoons. Each side takes turns lobbing grenades and collecting more powerful guns. It's an addictive theme that spawned more than a dozen sequels, remakes and spin-offs.



Cyril
Cyril:
Worms probably didn't need a memorable theme song to stand out from the crowd. After all, this is an ultra-violent turn-based war simulator starring a ragtag group of small, elongated soft-bodied invertebrate animals. But in a game featuring holy hand grenades and explosive sheep, this theme song stands out as my favorite thing about Worms. Easy to whistle and hard to get wrong, the Worms theme sounds great no matter how you play it. I love this song slowed down, put to a techno beat or au naturel. It's a war theme that gets never fails to get me pumped up, even when my daily battles have little to do with homing missiles and banana bombs. The composer is confident enough to wait nearly 30 seconds for the melody to arrive. He has nothing to worry about, because the Worms theme is worth the wait.


Kevin:
At first, the Worms theme seems like a very generic military theme with some Worm grunts and other game sound effects mixed in. The backing synths are building up though, and just before the half way point things get interesting when a melody is introduced. Slowly more instruments join in to fill out the song, giving it a more powerful feeling as well as steadily making the music more intricate. The whole song crescendos into a proper ending, rather than looping like so many themes seem to do. Everything about it fits the game, it has a strong compositional structure, and the silly sound effects somehow don't take away from it. All in all, this is a very well done theme.

What's Next? The streets are full of riffraff and somebody needs to clean it up. Thank goodness you have a lot of rage built up. Now is your chance to mash buttons until you eventually throw somebody out of a window. Also, there's an elevator stage. There's always an elevator stage.