There are certain things in life that make you want to ask why. Why bother putting the clocks back, why not leave them alone? Why are McDonalds selling salads? Why don't we get a free car wash when we fill up, like the old song goes? You could question everything and the list could undeniably go on. The biggest question when it comes to games is why Worms? Why not cows, spiders, cats, rats, ants or any other living thing?

It's a question that will do doubt be left unanswered properly, because I don't think they had a genuine reason when they dreamt the first Worms up - which appeared on a 3 and a half inch floppy, which is quite ironic, because worms normally measure to a similar length and they are indeed floppy. Facts aside, Worms has become quite a renowned gaming series over the years and I feel it's safe to say that Team 17 has gathered a large following towards the underground nutrient spinners.

The 3D change baffled many a few years back, when people saw their favourite 2D characters go into the third dimension. Some people detested the change and expressed nothing but dismay for the little soil dwellers - but Geoff Holland gave Worms 3D a pretty good score, acknowledging the multiplayer and awarding credit where it was quite rightly due.

The latest instalment, still in 3D, is called Worms Forts: Under Siege. As the name may clearly suggest, this game is about building a fort, protecting that fort and destroying the other teams' forts - which is no walk in the park. The gameplay focuses more on destroying buildings than destroying worms, which is a welcome change, although some people may be put off by this.

You can start the game taking a big tutorial that explains everything from basic 3D controls if you're new to the Worms 3D engine, right through to building and destroying forts. A lot of the game's rules are explained in these tutorials so it's strongly advised to spend the time on this, or you're going to be oblivious to the worm-threatening changes. You learn the basics from the 'higher being' who is your Worm God. He's a funny old fellow and some of the comical 3D facial expressions he pulls are hilarious. However, it is a crying shame that the worms do not talk within the cut-scenes and tutorial levels, because this would add a lot more comical scope - with accents and vocal expressions, it would have been a classic. Unfortunately the lack of voices makes for a lot of reading; on the plus side the text is broken up with funny one-liners and animations though.

In fact, humour in the Worms games is something that fans probably take for granted by now. There's no two ways about it - some things are genuinely funny in this game and I found myself laughing on several happy occasions. Although the jokes are hard to portray in the text and the general rule that delivering a joke with the tone of your voice can make or break it, the people who have written some of the jokes deserve a pat on the back. The animators also get an equal share of praise, as some of the facial animations can tell a joke just by looking at the rolling eyes or the cheeky smiles. There's a good gag about Egypt and sand which got me smiling, but I'm not one to steal material.

The game is based in many places around the globe - Rome, where you are allegedly from, China and Egypt to mention but a few and within each land there are a number of maps - you'll find a pyramid map and one with a big sphinx in, each unique and highly playable.

The single player is made up of four main modes. The obvious choice and a personal favourite is the quick game, where you can jump straight into the action without any configuration. Configuration is good, but when you want some action fast, the quick game will satisfy your needs every time. I class the tutorial as a mode, because it's so long and it's broken up into quite a few lessons, which are worth playing again and again, to brush up on the advanced moves as well as the basics. Campaign Mode is the main part of the game and it's strangely different to any Worms single player I've come across. I'll come to this later. The Trails mode is a game full of challenges, consisting mainly of death matches against tough computer foes - completing one level unlocks another, so you work your way up the ranks, which can take quite some time.

But before I get onto the Campaign mode, I'd better explain how the gameplay actually works! As you already know, the game is mainly about building forts. In most games, you and your team of worms will start off with a stronghold, which is the main building of the game. If this gets destroyed the game is over and the opponent is the victor - and vice versa if you destroy theirs. Around the stronghold you'll be able to build things such as towers and keeps, which join onto the main building. Constructing a building doesn't take one of your turns away but you can only erect one building per turn, providing you have that building in stock - which normally can be found scattered around the landscape, if you haven't already started with a large number anyway.

You can build a long row of buildings, providing the long row stays in contact with the stronghold, somewhere down the line. Towers are ten-a-penny, that is they are common and they don't allow for much fun later on. Keeps are the main attraction, or should I say one of them. You see, all the buildings can be turned into turrets for one go. For example, you double jump onto the tower, go to your weapon menu and look at the turrets available for this level of building. The typical weapon for the tower is the mortar, which is quite powerful but it's not nearly as good as the ones that become available when you build better buildings. In true Worms style, a mortar isn't really a mortar, it's actually a vicar, which flies through the air and upon hitting something he drops half-a-dozen bibles that explode - nice.

So how do you build better structures? Simple, you have to capture a victory location, which thickens the plot, somewhat. A victory location is a golden star - you must build a building on top of this star to capture it. The star doesn't disappear when you've built on top of it though; it's only yours while your building is on it and if that building is destroyed, then say goodbye to your star. There are many stars to capture and as you can imagine, they are all spread out, so you'll have to build a long line of towers in order to reach the victory locations. This causes some concern, because if the opponent targets the root tower (the one which is closest to the stronghold) then the towers after that point fall down too. The same goes if they target a middle tower in a long chain; the towers after the one destroyed will tumble, which adds even more depth to the game.

So, once you've got two stars (and you start off with one) think on - you can build a keep. A keep is much larger than a tower and it allows you to launch more at your opponent - such as an exploding rhino that knocks down buildings and a mine strike, to mention just two from a range of bizarre weapons. The next building up, requiring one more victory location, is the castle, again bigger and better. The castle allows you to enjoy weapons such as the flying rhino, the flying fridge and over sized arrows - the better the building, the better the weapon and the better the damage it inflicts upon the enemy. The last building is a citadel. This is the largest of the buildings, requiring four victory locations to construct. The weapons you can get for these are unbelievably powerful - but it takes a while to get one of these and I won't spoil the surprises in store here! I will say however, that you can call down your god as a last resort and ask him to flood the place - or even rain down a storm of toasters from an electrical cloud - these are just two superpowers your god can perform!

The buildings don't stop there either; to make things more interesting, there are even more exciting buildings that give you the competitive edge if you build them. Some require few victory locations, while others can require up to five. These buildings heal your troops and re-spawn them, make new weapons, produce more crates and pretty much laugh in your opponent's face - when you get these on the map, you know you are doing well.

The Campaign mode isn't just match after match though - it's more than that. Some levels actually see you completing objectives in a platform game fashion. The first level requires you to use your map to solve an Egyptian puzzle. You must jump around on various platforms, finding four crates to punch out these special Egyptian targets. Although the puzzles aren't too demanding on the brain matter, the platforming aspect can be quite tricky - especially with lots of mines lying around! These levels make a nice change from the matches. However, the campaign sees some turn-based matches, but it's nice of them to space it out with other challenges.

Playing games with the computer can become tedious after a while. The game starts to drag on and with matches lasting anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours you can be at it for a while. I've had matches go on for ages and I must admit that I wanted to turn it off and go outside, but I could not - because if you turn the game off halfway, then you've wasted your time. So you have to stick it out, eyes focused on the clock more than anything. Sure, the fun stays for half an hour but it goes downhill from there, especially when it all boils down to long-ranged hit-and-miss combat. And because 90% of the weapons are now to be used on top of the towers you cannot really go to the other base and blow them up with the old banana bombs. All the classic weapons have been upgraded for usage on towers, so you can only use the basic weapons in hand the bazooka and grenade. The game can be won by finishing the worms off but without close-range heavy-weaponry like we saw in the Worms games from yesteryear, it makes this difficult.

The worst thing that makes the game tedious is the fact that the computer-controlled moves must be watched You are frantically pressing the action button in the hope that it will hurry the computer up, but it's no good - at times you think your infernal tapping slows down the process! Now, I can understand that not viewing the computer's go would cause confusion, because you don't know what they just did - but wouldn't a fast-forward button suffice? Come on, it can't be that hard, can it? Just a button what speeds up the gameplay like The Sims incorporates. You can always bet your boots that the AI will use his full minute turn. He never ends it after 30 seconds; he will walk around collecting crates right until the last minute, as if the whole thing is scripted like a movie. I couldn't go on a shopping spree for weapons and make it back in time to kill my foe. But the AI can. He can and he will. And if there are no crates, he'll spend 30 seconds standing still and 20 seconds aiming and 10 seconds kicking your butt - a slight exaggeration, but you get the idea.

In fact, my mum said it's a good game if you want to clean your room at the same time and she's exactly right. Make a move, then you have a minute to clean your desk - make another move and empty your bin, another and make your bed - and after that you are free to brew a cuppa. It's a shame that it has to be this way, but because of this the games against the AI can get rather boring.

The multiplayer is where Worms Forts realises its full potential though - it's amazing! If you have friends then you're going to enjoy this game and the more the better. The game actually supports four players on one controller, but if you happen to have fifteen friends you could each control one worm, as each team consists of four worms. In multiplayer you don't mind watching your friend make a move, because you can physically put him or her off and make them lose concentration during those all important last five seconds. If you've got time you can make your own teams, with comical or rude worm names (can't think what though!) Give your worms a flag, a fanfare victory noise, a voice box, a team name, a super weapon and a grave and you're just about ready. Let your friends do the same too, mind.

The multiplayer modes can be enhanced and changed greatly, due to the in-game modifications that are roaring to be exploited. They call these modifications Fortpot - where you are faced with a BAR-BAR-BAR one-armed bandit machine. Instead of icons for fruit and such, you get little worm icons and the idea is not to get the same three either! Pull the lever and see what modifications you get - if you are happy with the set then press accept and these changes take effect in the coming round. If you are unhappy, pull again, or nudge the single ones you are not happy with. These modifications can do a lot to the game. Rain down many weapon crates each turn, tell you what's in the crates, let you fire from an enemy's tower, make your damage double for a faster round and my personal favourite, which divides the worms into areas of expertise - repair man, builder and attacker! There's a lot more modifications to be had, but these make the game last a whole lot longer, guaranteeing that no game will be the same twice.

Graphics wise the game is quite good - it has some beautiful animations and some lovely cartoon explosions, but these are marred a little by the awkward camera angles that occasionally appear in the game. The camera can be adjusted, which is good, but it can get confused when you fire a weapon; so confused in fact that it will just point at the ground, letting you see nothing but a floor-tile! When you can see though, the graphics are nice, the 3D worms look better than they did in the last instalment and the environments are much improved too - although they're not destructible to the same degree as before, which really disappointed me.

The sound is where the game takes a body blow. There are some nice sound effects for the weaponry, the wind and, on the odd occasion, some nice music plays to save you from AI boredom! For a few days you'll love the audio, but after a week of playing, the phrases your worms come out with during battle become repetitive, as they use the same one-liners for the same corresponding move. However, you can change your voice by the day and with a large number of sound banks and even more to unlock, you've got to give some credit for this.

Worms Forts: Under Siege is enjoyable on the whole. I rarely played most of the single player modes because the AI began to boil my blood - but I did jump at the chance of playing a platform puzzle worm scenario! The fun really does lie in the multiplayer, because the drunken laughs my friends and I have had with this game have been fantastic and they went on and on into the early hours. "Crack another can open, lets have another match, I won't lose this time!" - is something you'll find yourself saying more often than not. If you have a few friends then this game makes a good change from the other multiplayer titles out there and is simply tremendously entertaining and addictive. The Xbox and PC versions support online gaming, so if you have the choice get it on one of those platforms. However, playing with real friends in this game is better than playing somebody online, as you get to have a real party spirit and distract each other in ways that simply aren't possible when the other players aren't in the same room. Not only this, but there's a ton to unlock and enrich your multiplayer games in months to come. Got friends? Get Worms!

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