Live Worms: The Duel

I was pretty bagged last night but I still "forced" myself to play a round of Live Arcade games, including the very recent Worms HD. I was feeling pretty good about my worming skills and decided to hop onto Live for my first match against some strangers.

I stumbled into a 1-on-1 match. My opponent: Snoopaloop1981. My mission: Kick some worm booty. We said our hellos and my host fired up the randomly generated map. It was a simple layout... relatively flat, rolling terrain and with very few nooks and crannies in which to hide.

I was selected to start things off and surprised myself with an impressively accurate grenade lob. Unfortunately, that would be my last pretty shot for a long time. It became readily apparent that my opponent was a lot more versed in the ways of the worm soldier. Right off the bat, he showed me just how cool and effective the Ninja Rope is, swinging his worm into combat range and dropping off an explosive payload that eliminated the first of my worms from the match. Ninja Rope = Awesome. Duly noted...

As it happens, I was obviously outmatched but the game was not up. That's the charming (and maddening) thing about Worms HD: the tide of battle can change when you least expect it and no matter how dominant you think you are in a match, it can all go to hell at a moment's notice. I held my own against Snoopaloop1981 for several rounds, dreadfully waiting for my inevitable defeat. Then it happened. I suspect my foe got his X and A buttons crossed (see my previous post) and detonated one of his worms into oblivion. Lucky break, I thought, lucky break.

I kept fighting, scoring a couple more decent shots, but still unable to do enough damage to any one worm to take it out of the battle. My luck had definitely run out, or so I thought. Again, the worm gods smiled upon me as my opponent botched a Cluster Bomb attack, dropping the package at his own worm's doorstep and doing himself grave damage.

I made some pretty embarrassing boo-boo's myself. Near the end, too nervous to use the Ninja Rope to Tarzan-swing my way cross the map, I ran out my Jetpack fuel and went crashing to the ground, forfeiting my attack and doing myself unnecessary damage. Another time, I missed a plum point-blank range Bazooka shot.

The match was almost over and Snoopaloop1981 had me dead to rights. Outnumbered 2 worms to 1, I braced myself for the coup de gras. Snoopaloop1981 pulled out his Ninja Rope once again and attempted a very ambitious move. With his supply of dynamite and mines exhausted, he tried blasting me with his Bazooka while still swinging by his rope. That's what it looked like to me, as it happened all too quickly. One moment he was up in the air above my worm, the next moment his worm was dropping to ground, past me and towards his other remaining worm. An explosion erupted between them and both his worms toppled into the newly formed crater. I watched in amazement as his worms did their sayonara self-destruct animations. Victory was mine!

I have to give big credit to Snoopaloop1981 for being a good sport. He must have shot himself in the foot about 4 times during the match and he still kept his cool. He also introduced me to the wonders of the Ninja Rope, which you can be sure I will be using in lieu of the Jetpack and Teleporter for many more situations.