As the saying goes, those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. While this isn't by far the first 2D series to have made the jump to 3D, you have to wonder for what reason Team 17 decided to overhaul their beloved Worms series, which had smoothly evolved after several installments to near perfection. The story of Worms 3D almost exactly mirrors that of another acclaimed 2D strategy game: Lemmings. Both offered unrivaled strategy fun and were at their prime before catching the 3D wave. But the 3D titles, while technologically more impressive, were missing a little magic, a little of what made the series such a blast to play in the first place.

I'll make this clear up front: I prefer the 2D Worms. While there's a ton of deep strategy and skill involved, part of the whole charm of Worms is its easy to pick up gameplay that appeals to all audiences. You command a team of personality-rich pink worms and take turns with an opponent moving around the map, taking aim with a creative arsenal of weaponry, and blasting each other to worm heaven. Worms 3D follows the same formula, but now that the world is rendered in full 3D, gameplay becomes much more challenging and problematic, mostly for technical reasons.

In previous Worms titles, gamers looked at the action from a side perspective, and basically all they had to do when firing was to aim in the general direction, take into account the strength and direction of the wind, and charge up appropriate power. It was simplistic, and anybody can pick up the basic subtleties of gameplay with a few rounds of play. But firing accurately in this 3D environment is quite difficult, hindered by a somewhat stubborn camera that has a proclivity for getting caught behind the terrain.

Ironically, your best friend in this game is toggling the 2D top-down camera, which shows the positions of the worms scattered around the battlefield and lets you better position your worm for a clean shot at the opposition.

Gauging distances for firing bazookas takes practice and touch, even moreso than in older titles. One of my big peeves is that sometimes after firing a shot, the camera doesn't follow the missile, grenade, or any other weapon precisely and can get stuck in the ground so that you can't really see the outcome of your turn. In a game like this that requires delicate aiming, making marginal adjustments to firing angle or charging power each turn is crucial to winning. But if you can't see where your missile ends up relative to the enemy, how can you adapt?

Despite these annoyances though, players can and will slowly adjust. While the game never feels as natural and intuitive as it used to be, Team 17 has done a decent job in translating the gameplay to 3D. A pretty in-depth tutorial is included that teaches you how to navigate around the maps and to use the various zany weapons. I would highly recommend going through the tutorial fully, as it gives you a consequence free environment to familiarize yourself with the controls. An extensive campaign mode provides the bulk of the single player action, and I found it to be surprisingly enjoyable.

Many of the levels are quite creative, spanning every single environment imaginable, from space to tropical islands and pirate ships. My favorite mission is the very first one, a D-Day recreation that pits your Allied worms on the beaches against an Axis army up on top behind a bunker. All throughout the battle, flak explodes in the air, and shells land around the island. Very nice touches. What's more, after finishing each mission, you are treated to hilarious cut-scenes involving the worms in all sorts of wacky scenarios. You'll want to keep playing just to see them all.

Supplementing the campaign is a challenge mode that forces you to complete specific tasks. These get challenging enough to the point of frustration, but dedicated players will be rewarded with a full completion ranking and bonus prizes. These single player modes provide plenty of gameplay to go through, but perhaps the strongest draw to Worms is the multiplayer mode where you can lay waste to your friends. Despite the camera and the 3D world, multiplayer is surprisingly almost as fun as it ever was, perhaps because your friends are handicapped with the same engine as you are, putting the teams on even ground. Blasting a worm full of Uzi lead or fire punching him into the ocean while an opponent gasps is great satisfaction. One complaint though (and this is a big one): why oh why is multiple controller support still not included? It was annoying in the PlayStation and Dreamcast days, but now it's just downright ridiculous.

Despite its technical shortcomings and the dubious decision to turn Worms 3D, this isn't a bad beginning of what probably will be a new series of titles for the franchise. While I doubt 3D Worms can ever capture the fluid gameplay of 2D, I feel the camera is the biggest hindrance, and once Team 17 addresses that problem, the next Worms 3D could be quite good. If you're an avid Worms fan and want to see the evolution in the series, Worms 3D is worth checking out as it still is fun. But I'm betting the next one will be even better. That's the one to wait for.