World of Goo review

Although Nintendo’s WiiWare service (where you can buy and download games to play rather than purchase discs) is a great bonus for those owning a Wii, up until now not even Nintendo themselves have released a killer title to really promote the service. So whilst many have tried, no single WiiWare game up until now has cut the mustard. Enter 2D Boy and their physics based puzzle game World of Goo; so consider the mustard well & truly cut, slashed, hung, drawn, quartered and spread over a tasty vegetarian hot dog. But hold on says the editor, we’re giving the idea away too soon, if you tell everyone how fantastic World of Goo is now they won’t read the rest of the review. Well Mr Editor, World of Goo is just too amazing to leave people in suspense, we don’t want to be held responsible for people holding their breath too long and collapsing do we? Costing more than any other game on WiiWare (1500 WiiPoints) you can expect a high quality game, and you will not be disappointed. Let’s take a deeper look in our World of Goo review.

As mentioned in the rant above, World of Goo for Wii is a puzzle game developed by 2D Boy (ex employees of EA) which uses Physics and Goo to bring puzzle games into the 21st Century. The main theme of the game revolves around building towers and bridges of Goo across chasms and up into the sky. It has a strange but compelling storyline, which encompasses innocent Goo being used as ingredients in a makeup industry, and a giant artificially intelligent search engine computer system that seemingly controls the universe (Googlytastic). Gameplay is very simple (to start with). All the first level asks of you is to build a small tower by stretching some of the many goo balls blubbering around on the ground together to reach the exit pipe.

By pointing the Wii Remote cursor at the Goo piece you want and pressing A, you can then drag him (her/it) to the desired position and when you let go your Goo structure has been extended accordingly. Yes that may sound simple but did you know that the building a tower requires foundation? If you build a top (or side) heavy tower with a skinny base it will soon topple over of collapse, likewise if you build a bridge without support it will fall into the abyss below. Sounding harder now isn’t it? Well why not mix in wind which can blow your goo, fire which can burn your goo, spinning spiky wheels of death which can kill your goo and yes things are sounding to sound more interesting and much more tricky.

The Goo itself comes in many varieties from simple black goo to springy green goo and even pretty goo, amongst many others. Understanding the properties of each goo ball is essential to completing a level because as you progress levels will feature more than one goo type forcing you to use the abilities of them all to reach the exit pipe. This jam packed game features around 50 levels spread over five game worlds, the game gets trickier as you progress but does a very good job with its learning curve. High score freaks will be please to hear that you can earn OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) ratings by completing every and saving as many goo balls as possible, note this requires uber building skill and is not for the fainthearted, most gamers should be content with just managing to complete each level. At any time you can enter the World of Goo cooperation and take part in the online component of the game.

Here every extra goo ball you save is stored (amounting to hundreds come the end of the game) and your job is to build a tower as high and as strong as possible. As time goes on you will see special clouds showing the height of your friend’s towers and that of others around the world, can you become the World of Goo tower champion? Graphically and Audibly World of Goo is an absolute treat, the game’s unique emo graphic style really captures your heart and like us you’ll be humming the tunes for days (we really suggest you download the free soundtrack for your iPod). World of Goo on Wii looks just as good as the PC version and even features exclusive multiplayer action where up to four people can help clear a level at once, is there anything World of Goo doesn’t do?

So to sum up, World of Goo is an outstanding game that feels so fresh in a gaming climate filled with shovelware, licences and sequels. We have no hesitation in comparing World of Goo to groundbreaking puzzle games such as Lemmings and Bill’s Tomato Game. With top gameplay, simple pick up and play controls, awesome graphics, a wonderful soundtrack and possibly the weirdest storyline ever we MUST award World of Goo almost top marks of 9 out of 10 without hesitation. Oh before we forget, the mysterious Sign Painter sends his regards.

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World of Goo review pics

World of Goo review screenshots

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2 Responses

  1. I love this game! THE BEST!!

  2. Wholesale says:

    buy and download games to play rather than purchase discs.