Toronto – Goo.
I don’t know if anyone else remembers that there was this website called Orisinal (they’re still up, but no longer pushing out new games). When I first laid eyes on World of Goo, it reminded me of one of those warm and fuzzy flash/shockwave games that I used to play on Orisinal. And so originally, the draw was nostalgia. No longer. The game is so good and simple it’s a wonder why something similar wasn’t done back in the 90s.
To get an idea of what WoG is all about, all you have to do is to remember chemistry classes. Yeah? All those black carbons and red oxygens and white hydrogens. You used to put the plastic balls together so you can see what LSD actually looks like. In WoG, you put them together to build bridges, towers, arc spans, swinging chairs, balloon baskets. Whatever tickles your fancy – as long as the physics is right. The goal of each level is always to collect the gooballs themselves, by reaching a vacuum. So the shape of your contraption adapts to the location of the suction, and also the dangers along the way. In one of the firsts levels, I was shocked to find that my bridge collapsed for no reason. But then I looked and saw that the balloons that hoisted the bridge had been punctured by some spikes – tricky. Another thing that separates WoG from old school favorites like Loadrunner and Scrotched Earth is that an elasticity exists. You’re no longer working with a solid piece. Whatever you build has an organic sway to it. Not only does it add to the atmosphere of working with real, live gooballs with cute blinky eyes, but it features perfectly into the gameplay and the choices you make during your contruction. So now time is sometimes of the essence – you can get there, but you need to be fast enough – before the freaking tower collapses due to a lack of solid fundation. Which leads me to the replay part of the game – in each level an obsessive-compulsive target is given as the ultimate goal. It usually involves sucking up every last gooballs… happy teeth-grinding.
No more. I’m going back to play this thing. Oh, and I won’t be getting this on a Wii – but it seems like the perfect way to get carpal tunnel syndrome…
