Loved playing Worms as a kid, not so much Liero. But before Worms, it was really Scorched Earth[0] that got me introduced to the genre. And with which I must have spent untold hours.
The best part of GORILLAS.BAS was how easy it was to explore, and crucially, mod. Some of my first programming experiences were tweaking it to change how the throws work, damage, etc. Super basic stuff but a wonderful gateway into the world of development.
It’s a shame there’s nothing as dead simple as that these days. Minecraft I guess is closest? But imo not comparable due to the closed nature and complexity.
Star Control II lives on as "The Ur-Quan Masters":
"The project started in August 2002, when Toys For Bob released the partially ported sources of Star Control 2 3DO version to the fan community. Our goal is to port this wonderful game to current personal computers and operating systems. It is and will remain 100% free of charge, and anyone can contribute to the project and thus help make it even better. For more information, look at our info page."
There was a flash game called Tanks that looks a lot like Scorched Earth, AI was bugged in that it would purchase better weapons but never actually use them, tons of fun to play against others though.
We had seriously limited options at my boarding school until we figured out how to root the machines and get quake and GTA running with serial cables… gorilla.bas all the way.
all the neighborhood kids used to crowd into my neighbor jeff's dad's office for scorched earth. a half dozen preteens around a 486 having a blast... gorilla.bas was a nice stand in for when we were at school
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorched_Earth_(video_game)