Team17 Have Lost The Plot
Written by Pooka

Team17 are one of Europe's finest and most successful software designer-creator-publishers. Their games are top quality, and they've done things which no other game maker has ever done before. Hoorah for Team17!

Problem.

What problem? Is there a problem? Should there even be the idea that there could be a problem with Team17? You don't see why there should be one?

Well, to tell you the truth, neither do I. Team17 have received their fair amount of praise in their time and it's all deserved, too. In fact, they don't get nearly enough praise. A few of the reviews I've seen concerning Superfrog (and that's a hell of a lot, believe me!) are quite sardonic to say the least, and run along the lines of “this is a platform game – yawn”. We all know they deserve more than this, which is why Dream17 is even in existence.

So what's the problem?

Worms is the problem. Obviously.
Now, we all love Worms – why shouldn't we? Since the original 'Total Wormage' by Andy Davidson (all hail), it's been a fantastic game. Extremely original, wonderfully fun to play, shockingly therapeutic... it touches all bases. The original took the gaming world by storm, and Worms: Reinforcements just made it better. Then came Worms 2 - a souped-up version, with better... well, everything - and Team17's day in the sun looked set to last a lifetime.

Of course, during this time, Team17 worked on a few games like Phoenix and X2, which were released and immediately ignored by basically everyone, because it was too confusing to look at a box with the Team17 logo on it which doesn't actually have anything to do with annelids. A promising platformer P.I.G. had to be shelved (read – was shelved for no good reason), and the company started work on Stunt GP (which wasn't actually released until a good few years afterwards: 2001 to be exact). But of course they kept all this hushed up, because they were also making Worms Armageddon!

Worms Armageddon – the Worms game to end them all... or so it was billed. In fact, the box claimed "THE BEST WORMS GAME EVER!" quite confidently. And, in my view at least, it had the right to claim this, as it was better than all the others (or not, with hindsight), and it was the last one, so it was going to be the best one ever. Right.

Why?

Why didn't they make that the last one? That's what they said it would be. The last one. It even had the word ARMAGEDDON in it – meaning the greatest, and the last. That's what they said! So why, two years later, were Team17 working on Worms World Party? Had they run out of ideas? Even their next puzzle game was billed as a Worms game – why not just make it a Team17 Blast with various Team17 characters in it? (Okay, so that's what it actually was, but they didn't say it was, did they?)

And now we have Worms 3D. Right, so we've finally got Worms in 3D – now please, Team17, stop. Stop with the worms here, like you said you would a few years ago. If another Worms game comes out, I know I won't buy it – what's the point of another one? I mean, can anyone think of anything else to do with the franchise (‘blowing it up' doesn't count)?

Okay, I probably am being a bit harsh here, but my point is clear. Team17 are perfectly capable of making things other than Worms games, so let's see that happening, please? Otherwise we'll be ending up with Worms Kart. Oh, damn, I may have given them another idea now...