Wednesday, January 06, 2010

Video game number three: World of Goo

Game review number three in my 365 Games in 365 Days project is "World of Goo".

The next game I decided to download and play is the PC arcade game, World of Goo. This is a really enjoyable physics-based puzzle game where you control little "goo-balls", which you must use to build towers, bridges and other random shapes that will help get you from point A to point B in the level. Much like Lemmings, your creatures are small, cute and make funny little noises when they die. You have a set number of goo-balls at the start, and you get graded on how many you are able to save by the end.

I played the Games for Windows version of this game, because of course...it has achievements. They aren't easy achievements by any measure and this game is very stingy with them. The first achievement you get is for beating the entire game, which took me nearly a week of occasional playing. After that, there are achievements for getting perfect scores (or "OCDs") on each individual stage in all of the levels. I'm not going for those, unless I want this to be the only game I'll be coming back to this year.

I thought this game was fantastic overall. It's a lot of fun, you can instantly pick it up and play it...but the strategy takes quite awhile to learn. There is a lot of finesse involved in positioning the little goo-balls. In some of the levels, I found myself leaving with just one or two to spare, in others...I'd need several tries and use all of them in order to exit the level.

Overall rating: 8.5/10
The physics engine in this game is fantastic and because of it, you'll never play a level the same way twice. Wind and weight feel "natural", and it's easy to lose track of time playing this one.

Here are the only two achievements I was able to unlock (the rest surround the "OCDs", which I'm not going to chase.


1 comment:

Rach said...

I love this game! It makes me laugh. :) You'll have to tell me about this whole getting achievements with PC games thing sometime.