I love video game news, video game lore and the camaraderie and sparkle of most hardcore gamers. The only thing I don’t love are the games themselves. I’m terrible at them. I try to play, honest I do, but I’m just a spaz. That’s why I’m the movies editor. It’s all on the receiving end. I’ll let my shrink and ex-girlfriends argue about the meaning behind that.
Today, however, turns a leaf. I finished a game. A (relatively) new game. I’ve finished World of Goo.
The last games I finished were LucasArts’ Outlaws and Quake II. Prior to that, you didn’t beat games. The space invaders just landed.
I was advised to give World of Goo a try as it might be the type of game I could handle. Put me in a First-Person Shooter situation and as soon as the fur flies I’m trapped in a corner, facing the ceiling.
But World of Goo rides that fine line between challenging and aggravating. It really does teach you as you go, doling out new permutations just as you’ve mastered the last ones. It’s also cute enough for a spectator to watch and not grow incredibly bored. After five minutes in, you and yours will be singing along to the extremely catchy songs. If you are like me, you’ll invent lyrics to describe the woes of the particular board. (Those that’ve played can chime in: “Stuck in Fisty’s Bogggggggg.”)
World of Goo is wise enough to mix in some easy boards with the impossible ones. I found anything that involved manipulating the balloons through wind to be incredibly stressful. Frankly, any time I made it to the pipe on one of those it was just kinda flying blind and “using the Force.” (Note, this is also what I do when I have to merge on busy highways. Don’t drive with me, I’m a disaster.)
The other big win of World of Goo is The Sign Painter, the wisecrackin’ support staff offering clues as you build your bouncy, goo-based super structures. The wry commentary of The Sign Painter kinda makes up for the fact that the story is just a little to vague to make much sense. But should you ever get caught not knowing what it is going on, you can just focus on the wonderfully, stretchy Goo.
I don’t know if World of Goo is a window to more Gaming for me. Are there many other games like World of Goo out there like it? Will I burn myself out, trying to capture that first high? Or will you soon need to pry my Wiimote from my cold dead hands? Only time and The Sign Painter can tell.
