Rapid Review: World of Goo

Since I spent the weekend playing World of Goo, I figured I could at least share my thoughts on the game. It's not exactly a new game, but being that it's more indie than your average game, and the fact that the developer estimates that only 1 in 5 copies are legitimate, it could probably use all the help it can get.

In short, World of Goo is a casual puzzle game built on top of a physics simulator. You take various balls of goo and build structures to reach the goal of each level. The goal is almost always to build towards a pipe and suck up as many goo balls as possible, trying to meet the particular minimum for that level. The game has a pretty easy difficulty slope, and by the time you reach the truly, brutally difficult levels you're well versed in the limitations of each type of goo, of which there are several. Graphically simple, but artistically fun and quirky, the game will run on just about any modern PC but provides the same amount of enjoyment and wow as a high-end game like Crysis. Getting minor knocks for occasionally quirky control issues, such as difficulty selecting already built pieces amongst a mass of swarming goo balls, World of Good gets a solid, fun-filled 9/10. For more details, hit the jump and read on.

It's surprising to play a casual puzzler like World of Goo and get treated to an actual story. While the story is irreverent, and ultimately has little bearing on the game play itself, it's nice to at least try to tie the levels and worlds, or islands, together. The world of World of Goo is divided into five chapters, four individual islands and a story epilogue, each with it's own unique artistic style and focus, as well as a sandbox mode for building whatever strikes your fancy. Most of the first island is a non-tutorial introduction to the mechanics of the game. You start with the most basic elements; black goo and simple building puzzles. The standard black goo is capable of nothing more than creating simple parts of structure that can be built on to gain height. It's not the strongest of the goo's, but it gets the job done. As you progress through the game you are introduced to other types of goo, like matchstick goo who are explosive and turn into matches that can act as fuses. There are also ivy goo which is stronger than your regular goo and can be removed and reattached at will, balloon goo which attach to objects and will lift them up or help support unwieldy goo towers, and a few others.

Puzzles in the game range from simple tasks like build a tower high enough to reach the goal pipe or span a gap, to things as difficult as creating a chain of single strand drool-like goo in a wind storm all while avoiding a deadly windmill that will destroy your creation. The puzzles tend to build on things you learned or used in the previous level, but the developers seemed to have a keen sense of knowing when enough was enough. Just when a certain gimmick or puzzle style starts to wear out its welcome, a new type of goo or a totally unique challenge is introduced. While there were only a few levels that seemed excessively difficult, two of which bordered on anger inducing, even the simple levels are fun because of the simple interface and the ingenuity of the puzzles despite the simplicity of the solution.

Mechanics aside, the game is a real treat for the eyes and ears. Although a simply styled 2-d game, the graphic art style of the backgrounds and objects in each level go beyond that of most casual games. While they aren't watercolor masterpieces like in Braid, they are pleasant and never get boring. The music is done very well too, with frantic themes during some of the more precarious puzzles and odd but soothing music box styled songs in the calm and easy going levels. Each level has music befitting it's aesthetic and tone. The little goo balls have their own personality too, letting out cute little "yipee's" and "uh oh's" that are reminiscent of the Worms series of games. All this wraps up an absolute joy of a game in a fun and entertaining package.

The only down sides to World of Goo were relatively minor, but could be very frustrating on occasion. When playing a level that had a large amount of goo, which tend to swarm all over the structure you're creating, it could be very difficult at times to grab exactly what you were aiming for. This was usually only an issue when you were dealing with goo's that could placed and removed, which could result in you yanking out a structurally vital goo when you were really trying to grab a loose goo to add on to your creation. The only other gripe was the sometimes laborious camera panning. As some levels necessitated, you would often have to build very large towers of which you could only see small sections of. There is no zoom feature, so you could be working on the top of your tower, being totally unaware that your base was in the process of imploding. A combination of the two problems would arise on occasion where you had to select a specific goo and put it in a specific location, but between the quirky selection and the fact that you didn't always know where everything was it could cause catastrophic failure and a little bit of swearing.

Final Verdict: Goo is tons of fun. Although it was a $5 purchase at the time I got it, it is well worth the $20 asking price. There are nearly 50 levels of gooey fun, the sandbox mode for when you get that building itch, and some replay value for those who like strive for perfection as each level had an "OCD" goal that far exceeded the levels minimum goal. It's a great looking game that I've had a hard time putting down even since beating it. World of Goo gets an easy 9/10.