World of Goo is an amazingly innovative and unique puzzle game that will often leave you in awe of its sheer brilliance.
World of Goo is set in a 2-dimensional environment, and the basic objective of the game is to move goo balls from one spot to another. You have a pre-built set from which you build, and your basic building blocks are the goo balls. Say, for example, that your pre-built set is a short line. To build on it, you set a goo ball away from the line. Once you set the goo ball, the corners of the line and the goo ball will connect, forming a triangle. You can continue to build more triangles upon the triangle you just built until you get to your destination, and you successfully solve the puzzle if you have enough goo balls remaining that you haven't used.
Though the game is set in a 2-dimensional world, it very much takes on properties of the world we're familiar with. It's governed by rules such as gravity and friction and motion. I'm no physicist (in fact, I hated the subject in high school), but everything feels pretty much authentic and I had very little problems with how things played out.
And though the basic gameplay is a standard 'take the goo balls from here to over there by connecting the goo balls till you reach the destination,' the actual gameplay is a lot more complex. You can't simply connect the goo balls and hope to solve the puzzle. There will be obstacles that you have to factor in and sometimes even use to solve puzzles; oftentimes, there are different ways to approach a puzzle and more efficient means to solve them. For instance, if your objective is to cross a gap by building a bridge with the goo balls, you can try and build a bridge by reinforcing the connecting structure in the side that you're building from and make sure that the portion that's crossing the gap is supported enough to withstand the gravitational pull. But a more efficient way (and one that would use less goo balls) is to build a structure vertically (but slightly leaning towards the other side of the gap) so that once it's tall enough, it will topple over and fall onto the other side, a method similar to cutting down a tall tree and having it fall across the gap.
And the game throws out so many varying scenarios and challenges that the game feels innovative and fresh throughout. There are gaps you have to cross, wind gusts you have to ride, sharp edges you have to avoid, narrow gaps or obstacles you have to navigate, momentum and motion you have to utilize, walls you have to bust through, weights you have to lift up or a protruding knob you have to press down, two objects you have to connect, and you often encounter scenarios that incorporate several of these types of challenges simultaneously.
And to meet all the challenges, you're given a variety of goo balls of varying properties and abilities that you have to strategically utilize. There are goos that connect only to two ends, goos that connect to multiple ends, goos that hang down, goos that stick to surfaces, goos that you can fling, goos that act as helium balloons and help you keep a structure up, goos that are flammable, goos that explode, goos that can touch otherwise dangerous surfaces, and you're often given a variety of these goo types to help you in solving the puzzles.
The puzzles are very well done all around. You're not given any instructions per se, but there are mysterious...hints written for you to read and they're just vague enough to not give anything away but also not leave you completely in the dark. And you're given a specific amount of 'undo' buttons so you can go back if you were to make a mistake.
The difficulty level isn't particularly high, although some did require of me multiple attempts before I was able to solve them, but they are quite challenging. They're never too frustrating that you feel like the game is unfairly relying on trial and error to enhance the puzzle. Many of them require you to stand back and survey and study the scene before trying to solve them, and there'll come a moment in which a light bulb comes on or you think, 'Ah, I think I see it,' and, upon attempting them either feel really satisfied that your thinking led to the correct solution or make you see that you didn't factor in something that's now obvious to you as you see, say, your structure topple over, which can be rewarding too in understanding that the developers really thought through the puzzles that were far more complex than you initially thought.
As with all games that are great, it's not just that the overall quality of the game is good or that it's challenging (and not in a cheap way); it's those moments that pop up every now and then that leave you breathless because of their sheer brilliance. They happen in games like Half-Life when you're taking the tram ride or battling the marines or the first time you speak to Jeanette Voorman in Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines and gasp, 'I think I'm in love' or the first time you hear the 'cops' song in Sam & Max Season 1 or realizing what's happening to Kerrigan in StarCraft and understanding that this is not just another RTS with a loose storyline that merely serves to connect different scenarios. And it happens in world of goo. I'm not going to describe the puzzles, but when I played the game, there were distinct moments when I thought, 'wow, they really designed this puzzle well' or 'they really thought this one through'. There are moments of brilliance flecked throughout the game, and it is these that make the game truly memorable and gives the game its replayability.
And that's another high point of the game. It has tremendous replay value. Whether you're trying to get more goo balls across or you want to try something different in solving certain puzzles or, as was often the case with Portal, you just want to do it all over again EVEN THOUGH you already know the solution to the puzzle, the game gives you plenty of incentive to play it again. The greatest incentive is in doing the 'multiplayer portion' of the game, in which you build a tower as high as you possibly can with all the goos that you've collected, or 'saved', throughout the game. You compete against other players and you're ranked based on how tall your tower ends up being. It's a very simple concept and may not seem all that challenging (the challenge coming only from having to compete with others), but it is surprisingly difficult to build a tall structure (and legitimately so) when you have, say, 300 goos with which to build and the structure reaches 25 meters in height. Simply said, the game requires you to pause and think, which is very much welcome when so many games these days simply require only motor skills. You can't just start building one triangle on top of another until you reach the desired height. You have to think and strategically position your goos and reinforce the structure when required and carefully build.
I can't speak intelligently about graphics and sound, so I'll keep this portion short and stupid. The graphics are very stylish (though nothing spectacular technically) and fit in perfectly with the wacky world of goo. The different goo balls seem to have distinct personalities and their look and the sounds they make reinforce this sentiment. Those that are mischievous look and behave so and the sound they make when you pick them up or drop them go along with this perceived characteristic. The music is appropriate to each puzzle. If the puzzle has goos that are asleep, it will have a very dream-like piece accompanying it. If there are dangers surrounding the goo balls, the game will play an ominous-sounding piece. All in all, I felt the music was very pleasant to listen to and, at the cost of sounding pretentious, I felt they were oftentimes soulful and evoked emotions that are very much appropriate to the given situations.
That doesn't mean that there aren't points of criticism. There are times when all the goos are bunched together, which make it difficult to pick particular goos that you need to use. It would have been nice if you could assign a key to particular types of goos or goos that are specifically part of a structure (that you're able to reposition) and by pressing that key allowed you to pick the one nearest to your mouse of that particular type. And there are other features that I felt could have been useful; for instance, in a rectangular structure consisting of two triangles, there's no way to put a cross beam to further strengthen the structure. And the game fatally crashed on me once, causing my profile to be deleted and all progress along with it. And there was something promised in the game that didn't quite pan out as I had hoped. But these are really minor complaints to an otherwise absolutely unique and extremely polished puzzle game which requires of you thought and strategy and quite often leaves you marveling at its sheer brilliance.
The developer of World of Goo is 2D Boy; the game is $20; and you can order the game either through their website (2dboy.com) or on steam. Do yourself a favor and buy the game. It is quite simply one of the best games to come out this year and I think you'll enjoy it immensely no matter your genre preference.