Well my neck muscles were healed to the poitn I decided to give kickboxing and raquetball anohther try. My neck was pretty much normal, but man, I’m so out of shape after taking two weeks off from cardio stuff, but I’m glad I went to both.

The racquetball courst were so hot and humid.. we were sweating before the first game even began. By game 3 I was having trouble breathing, the air was so heavy. But regardless, it was good to get back in the swing of things.

The Worms series has been alive and exploding worms since the old 8-bit Nintendo.

The newest in the series from Team 17, Worms Armageddon, adds features and improves slightly on its most recent predecessor, Worms 2.

The game is a team vs. team game. While there is a one-player mode, it comes to its full potential in multi-player mode, either with several people hunched around one screen, mouse and keyboard, or via a Local Area Network (LAN) or an Internet server.

Teams consist of warrior worms that can be customized with names to your liking and even sound files. Our team members found sound schemes for everything from "The Simpsons" to "Pulp Fiction."

So rather than a missed shot resulting in a scolding from a worm with a high-pitched voice, you can hear Homer Simpson yelling "D’oh!"

Teams take turns trying to eliminate all of the worms not on their team. If you were a worm, how would you take out the enemies? Team 17 decided to give the worms 60 different choices, all with their own quirks, tricks and situational uses. The favorites on my team are the Holy Hand Grenade (paying a little homage to Monty Python), the banana bomb, which explodes and then distributes several clusters of volatile bananas. There’s also the Super Sheep, capable of bleating its little heart out before donning a cape and taking to the sky in an explosive kamikaze mission.

Sound weird? It is - but it was instantly addictive and fun to play with a group of people. The game builds on the old game Scorched Earth, in which opposing tanks fired at one another relentlessly with a plethora of weapons.

Most everything can be customized in the game, giving great and varied play. Players can build the landscapes and choose which and how many weapons to start with. There are so many options I’ve yet to totally tweak all the settings.

The game play is very similar to Worms 2. A few weapons have been added, while others areabsent. The biggest additions are improved graphics on each landscape and a couple of more powerful weapons.

Sadly, the multiple random cartoon intros that Worms 2 started up with are gone and they are sorely missed.

But side by side, Worms 2 and Worms Armageddon are pretty much the same game. Neither will disappoint you when you’re looking for a fun multiplayer game with a bit of a sense of humor and a lot of options.

Team 17
Rating: ages 11 and up
Requirements:
Pentium-100,
Windows 95/98,
32 MB RAM,
2x CD-ROM,
50 MB free hard drive space, 1 MB SVGA card,
16-bit sound card

Originally printed in the News & Observer and NandoNext.

AutoExpress recently drove the Ferraru Enzo. What a sweet machine:

http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/front_index.php?cp=1&page=news%2Fae_news_story.php%3Fid%3D28539