This is the best feeling ever. Being able to review the latest and greatest Worms game in the series, a game that was made a mere fifteen miles away from my 'hoos' in Yorkshire.

Worms 4: Mayhem puts you right in the middle of the action once more, strolling away from the Forts and back to the battlefield. People might compare this to Worms 3D at first glance, but there are a couple of major differences that I'll cover later on. I feel that this game is like the 'World Party' of the 3D worms. Being able to play people from all over the world online isn't something you could do on Worms 3D, because only America got the online functionality. Worms 4 is so playable that it keeps me up at night - and it sure makes a change to be playing a different kind Worm game in the early hours, let me tell you!

Making a team is how every player starts off with a Worms game. In Worms 4, making a team is one of the most enjoyable aspects of the game. Name all six of your worms and then customise your team's visual appearance. Select from hats and hairstyles for the head, glasses and other comical items for the eyes, facial hair for the face and all different kinds of gloves (or even a pirate hook) for the hands. At the end, you'll have a really unique looking team of Worms. Of course, all your team dresses the same, but having a group of worms with a pirate hat, a pair of Matrix-style shades, a biker's moustache and yellow rubber gloves is quite a feat in itself. You can even buy new items for each customisation category in the shop with your hard earned coins, which means you'll be able to swap and change your outfits whenever you're feeling that way inclined. Before moving on, don't forget to select from one of the many hilarious sound banks - which will make your Worms sound like a pack of Scousers, a group of disco-loving groovers, or a bunch of gangsters, to mention a few! Hey, ey! Calm down Jimmy, calm down!

Choose your grave and flag, and you're half way there! In Worms 4 you can make your own team weapon (or choose from a list of pre-made ones). You can choose whether your custom weapon is launched, thrown, or called in for an airstike. This system is not as powerful as you might think, because there are limitations. Just imagine an RPG game where you make a character and assign a load of points to different attributes. It's almost like that. You have a little pressure-looking gauge on the left hand side and you are allowed to get that hand right up until it goes into the red and starts to smoke. When it starts to smoke, you've gone too far! I made myself a weapon I like to call the 'Bastard Bunny'. It's a Bunny bear, which can be thrown and on impact spawns 5 additional clusters, which all do massive damage to the land, but no damage to the worms. It's quite a situational weapon but you can take away half the land with the Bastard Bunny and hopefully that will sink those pesky enemy worms! Obviously, the drawback to this weapon (I had to make tradeoffs or else the gauge would have started to smoke) is that it doesn't do damage to the worms if it doesn't sink them!

The story mode is as comical as ever. It has a little bit of a story, which is complimented by the odd FMV and a lot of reading - the worms do speak but only in comical gibberish. It's a shame that my worms don't talk in the Scouse voice I selected for the mission banter but they do talk in the Scouse voice on the battlefield! That's definitely an improvement to keep in mind for the future though. The story takes you through all sorts of missions, from protecting the professor, to finding required items and stealing enemy worm tools! It's a lot of fun from start to finish and the best way to earn coins to improve your appearance for multiplayer, as well and buying new maps, weapons and schemes, amongst other little nifty things.

There are quite a few changes from Worms 3D that should be noted. Firstly, the animations for the worms are a lot more polished and comical. If you point a gun at one worm for example, the worm in question might look frightened and point to another worm that he wants you to shoot instead - be it on his own team, or a completely different team! When you shoot that worm with your shotgun, the worm realistically flies back, flat onto its face, instead of just hopping back like they did in Worms 3D. The Ninja rope can pull objects such as barrels, mines and boxes of goodies to you, which adds a lot of strategy. You can pull a few barrels next to the enemy, plant a stick of dynamite and then get out of there! Unfortunately, the rope seems to be a lot shorter than before but the fact that you can move things around the map to your advantage more than makes up for it! The barrels actually make the surrounding worms become sick now, which causes nasty damage over time. Mines do a lot more damage and there are two types of mine -explosive and contagious. There are loads of ways to become sick, as you will see.

Environments seem to destruct a lot more easily and realistically, so my Bastard Bunny really makes a dent in the land too. More destruction makes it feel like its old classic 2D roots, something that is much appreciated. There are a lot of new weapons added too, including the sniper, which takes off 40 damage from far away, the Tail Nailer, which roots the enemy in place for the rest of the match unless an explosion sets them free and the Bovine Blitz, which is an airstike where you can control the aeroplane and drop off three cows in different places. There are a lot more weapons here that are new, but I'll leave them for you to discover. Read: Fatkins bomb!

The heart of any Worms game lies in the multiplayer though and it doesn't disappoint in the slightest. Offline multiplayer is as funny as ever, laughs aplenty, really good fun. With the random map generator, which gives you some degree of control by typing in a large string of numbers to generate the random map, and the Wormpot, which allows you to throw up to three mods into the mix, no two games are the same. One mod makes one of your worms a vampire, so any damage he deals will be halved and returned to him in health!

There are five different multiplayer modes, each doing something a little bit different to vary the gameplay but none becoming overly complex. Deathmatch is the game you'll play the most, Homelands is like Deathmatch, except each team starts at their own little fort. Destruction involves you blowing up each others' bases and shares the same type of maps that Homelands has. Statue Defend is just like Destruction, using the same maps, except you have to protect your statues and blow the other ones up! The last mode, Survivor is a barrel of laughs. It's just like Deathmatch, except you've only got access to any one worm at any time. When your first worm dies, another worm from your team spawns until your team is out. This makes for some real tactical one on one combat, and if more than two players are playing, then the sparks will really fly! The AI can only participate in Deathmatch, Homelands, and Survivor modes; the other two you'll have to find more friends for! The AI is a little cleverer than usual. Instead of just using the bazooka, they'll use more things at their disposal and keep their turn time down to a minimal.

While these modes are fantastic offline, they are even better online. This is where the PS2 version gets the brown end of the stick. While the Xbox and PC both have full online capabilities, the PS2 is limited to offline play. Xbox Live play is fantastic, with voice support to talk to your friends while they make their turns and the PC has advantages like quick weapon menu access with the mouse; both of them are fantastic online. If you have access to Broadband, and have an Xbox or a PC, then I would urge you to buy this on one of the other platforms instead. In fact, I'd probably say that the Xbox version stands out from the crowd, because it's offline friendly with the control pad, whereas the PC version is a little offline unfriendly if you aren't planning to LAN. It all depends what you want out of Worms 4, but take it from me, playing online is an experience that you won't forget.

Before I rave on about how good the game looks and sounds, I'm going to tell you about a sweet new addition - teleportation points. Every time you play, teleportation points randomly spawn at the start of the game. Walking into a teleportation point teleports you to the one that it's connected up to. This can sometimes give you a higher vantage point, or if you're unlucky, teleport you into a minefield! Either way, this feature adds a lot more diversity to any one level. The mystery crates also add a little bit of flavour too. One crate might make the opposing team sick, another might flood the map and drown the worms right at the bottom, another might trigger off a random explosion anywhere on the map and the worst one I've come across is a crate that takes off 25 damage and ends your turn. These are but a few spices I have come across on my travels!

I'm really impressed with the graphics in Worms 4. As mentioned before, the animations are really comical and do the job of speaking volumes when they aren't even saying anything! The cel-shading looks better than ever, with firework style explosions with plumes of grey clouds. The water effects are really breathtaking and the land looks so detailed that it's almost a shame to blow it up. There are many pre-made maps in the game you can buy and they are so creative that they're simply a joy to play on. Trees can be used as vantage points and eroding castles can be climbed up with some careful platform manoeuvring.

The sound department has done a great job, as per usual. The worms are excellent at expressing their hatred for the other teams, while keeping the player entertained. The phrases might get repetitive but for all the right reasons - they become more like a coined catchphrase rather than a repetitive sound byte. "Not mi trackies!" a Scouse worm might shout! The music will have you tapping your feet to the addictive and memorable tunes, themed to suit the maps. It's a shame the worms don't talk proper English during mission storylines - but if that's my only gripe, then Team17 must be doing something right.

Speaking of gripes, there's very little wrong with this title. The camera occasionally goes astray, which sometimes poses a little bit of a problem in the crucial last seconds of your turn, or if you cannot see what damage you have just caused - but I'm sure there's sommat Team17 can do about this in the next-gen instalment. It would be grand if next time we could have a fully-fledged map editor too!

Worms 4: Mayhem is another masterpiece from the Yorkshire Tea drinking developers, another multiplayer hit from those flat-cap wearing geniuses. With dandy graphics, hilarious sound, bags of variety, lots to unlock, loads of weapons and a multiplayer mode with near endless longevity, this title is well worth the brass. Put wood in oil, sit on buffit'and have some reet lark! As good as they mak 'em!

Reviewed by Dexter Pearson for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).