World of Goo
Though I am in Tokyo at the moment, I’ve managed to squeeze in enough hours to play through World of Goo since those of us who preordered got our copy more than a week ago. It also helps that it’s not very long, or rather, like Braid it doesn’t overstay it’s welcome. I hope this is trend carries over to mainstream games as well.
So, World of Goo. A game with a deceptively simple premise – use the living goo balls to build a structure that reaches a pipe where the remaining balls can escape. click a ball to pick it up, release to drop it again. As with any good game with a simple premise, World of Goo challenges you with new types of obstacles in the terrain, like turning wheels, wind and spikes that destroy goo balls, and new types of goo balls that react to these obstacles in different ways.
Like Braid, World of Goo doesn’t ever really give you the same puzzle more than once, but a rare few stages contain needlessly many repetitions of the same moment so you can still grow tired of it occasionally. Also, while I don’t really mind the game being short it seems that most new elements only appear in a single stage, and it seems that more puzzles could be constructed by mixing them together without making the game repetitive. The biggest nitpick, though, is that it can be hard to select the exact ball you need – especially when speed is of the essence, and the game inconveniently enough declines you possibilites to undo your latest action when it is most needed.
… But the fact that one of the things I’m griping about is that I want more of it is pretty telling, I guess, and World of Goo is indeed a very good game.