Five Reasons Why World Of Goo is The Best Game I’ve Played This Year
Once every so often I break my veil of sadness and depression and am forced to admit that I’m enjoying myself. Like this; World of Goo is great. So great in fact that I would say it’s the best game I have played all year.
That’s quite a bold claim I know, what with me playing the likes of Uncharted 2, old Star Wars games from the mid 90s and Haze. But I think the charming little indie game has earned its sausage and is currently the best game ever, this year, 2010. If you’re wondering, these reasons are all facts not opinions.
1. It runs like warm butter on my laptop
PC gaming sadly died about three years ago when the council of WASD deemed it impossible to buy a gaming PC for less than $5,000 unless you have a degree in being smug and knowing what this year’s crop of acronyms mean. Thankfully nobody told 2D Boy who’ve made a game that runs well. It doesn’t run fantastically, they’re not the second coming, but it runs at a rate I think is acceptable. This is a very rare thing for a PC game to achieve.
2. It knocks one off my Steam “not installed” list
Steam is a fantastic way for you to make a list of all the games you pay money for and never play. They have a handy “not installed” list keeping track of every single time you’ve wasted your cash. Playing World of Goo moved that one title off that list. How long was it there? I honestly couldn’t tell you. About as long as Audiosurf I think.
3. It makes you think, but not very much
Make a shape out of triangles and squares, oh and some stuff floats, some other stuff does other things too. It’s a bit like playing with Lego only cuter and you can’t get anything wedged in your heel. World of Goo gives you a fantastic feeling of solving complex puzzles. Obviously you’re using your ape mind and trial and error to get through, but it still feels like you’re smart. And that’s good.
4. There’s no just-like-a-popular-film plot to follow
“This game has a fantastic story” reads the review from Generic Reviewer #1137 of generic-high-budget-videogame. “It’s like a Hollywood blockbuster!” Not sure if you go to the cinema, Mr .7, but “blockbusters” typically have shitty stories. Oh no the main character is sad! Oh ho ho, that’s a plucky woman, I wonder if they’ll snog? Gosh, the bad guy turned out not to be bad after all and there is a worse bad guy! etc. World of Goo just does in-game story properly. It adds a thick layer of atmosphere and lets you use osmosis to work out what’s going on.
5. It’s not Haze
Haze really is awful.
Two reasons that World of Goo nearly was, but isn’t my game of the year (that I played, not of that year), if not for two reasons.
1. It’s well hard. If you’re me, anyway.
2. I played Fallout, and even though that was also a bit tricky (again, if you’re me, anyway,) I couldn’t access Steam for like a month so I had to play that.
Ya know, a cheap gaming PC (decent enough to run crysis) costs about $500 nowadays. Even if you don’t know how to do put one together, ask a friend who does. We love putting these things together.
I think I’ll play World of Goo now.
I dont really see the fuss to be honest. It has less depth than many online flash games, and while it is kinda challenging it seemed more like luck that once you had figured out the ‘solution’ it wouldnt always work and would take a few trys of the same thing.
It really is a great game. Play it on PC though, don’t bother with the Wii version, imprecise Wiimote-itis makes for a darn frustrating experience.
I played it on the Wii. It was still awesome.
i liked world of goo. but somehow i still like the old game it was derived of more… but i think thats mostly because i have a fetish for right angles and killing trains with funny bridge crashes.
@NoZart: derived FROM you austrian dipshit
This article reads more like “5 Reasons That Make It Obvious World Of Goo Is The Only Game I’ve Played This Year.”.
@David Macphail: That’s not fair, I’m almost 30% certain that he played Torchlight.
I think it was mentioned once on some forum thread or something :j
(Although I am a bit surprised that it beat Torchlight, I can see why it did.)
@jymkata: that should be :p you IDIOT.
I haven’t played Torchlight yet this year :P
@wardrox: THIS year.
Dammit, how did I miss that.
Okay, everyone, disregard everything I’ve said, I’m an idiot.
Also the next game in the Radiator sourcemod series might just be the best game that comes out this year.