World of Goo!!!!

I went out on a limb the other day. I bought World of Goo. I tried it out as a demo and absolutely loved it. It is a wonderful creation blending imagination, art style and humor into one game. For people who have not played it, the game is an engineering game. You start out a level with lots of goo balls and a basic structure. You place to goo balls near the existing structure and it adds to it in a way stated upon screen. You are always building toward a pipe that you will "escape" the level from. Your goal is to build to the pipe in the fewest amount of goo balls possible, with each one you get increasing your score. This sounds sounds easy (well it did to me) but the game of course throws in curve balls. You have to build over obstacles, some which will pop your goo balls. This game is so different from all the other games I've played recently. I don't really spend a lot of money on games and this game is actually a reason why I do not. The vast majority of games are all the same. Sure, a lot of them are like "Oh oh! look at how our game is so much better! We have 500 player multiplayer and introduce this new gameplay mode called Traffic, where you are all in cars and you try to get to a building to go to work. The more damage on your car, the worse your score". Okay, so? World of Goo is so much different that any other game I know. World of Warcraft is very similar to Runescape, Ultima Online and Everquest. Team Fortress 2 is very similar to most other First person shooters. I cite these examples because I label them my most played and therefore favorite games. The reason WoW and TF2 escape the current of mediocrity is because they do so many things right and their little things are what save them. WoW is such a polished game in so many respects that it differentiates itself from the pack in that way and TF2 's classes go that extra length to make it feel that a scout plays very differently than a heavy. World of Goo is such a departure from modern gaming in general. It's graphics are not stunning although they do add tremendously to the feel and atmosphere of the game as a whole. It's concentrates on a game that asks you to use your mind. Portal is actually an example of a game that was so unusual that people were really taken aback by its quality. 

I also bought Geometry Wars and a wired controller. I don't know where my wireless connector went and so I decided to splurge and pick up a wired one. Geometry Wars is very rare because it is such a compelling game. You just want to play it over and over again. It gets you hooked and doesn't let go. I also found out that my roommate plays Geometry Wars, and so he has been playing it too. He beat my high score :(. O well, that means I'm going to have to practice and beat that. I think 1,500,000 will do. ;).

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