Worms

Worms, released by Team17 in 1995, took the old idea of artillery games like Scorched Earth and gave it a wickedly funny personality. You command a squad of cartoon earthworms lobbing weapons at rival teams across randomly generated 2D landscapes. Each turn you pick a worm, choose a weapon, judge the wind and the arc, and fire — then watch chunks of the destructible terrain blow apart, sometimes dropping enemies into the water below.

The genius is in the arsenal and the tone. Alongside sensible bazookas and grenades sit gloriously silly options: the exploding sheep, the Holy Hand Grenade, the air strike, and the infamous Banana Bomb. Squeaky voice samples and self-destructing worms that cough out a grenade when defeated give every match a slapstick charm. It was designed for hotseat multiplayer, and passing the mouse around a room of friends, cackling as a stray shot dumps your own worm into the sea, is where the game truly comes alive.

The turn-based structure means it never feels dated the way twitch action can, and the blend of tactics, physics and chaos still holds up beautifully. Worms launched a franchise that Team17 is still milking today, but this original DOS outing already had all the essential ingredients in place.