Inner Working Reviews: World of Goo

Introduction:
Hello! Well, Alpha Protocol is taking me a lot longer to play through than i thought it would. So decided to review a game from the Indie crowd. The best thing about Indie games is that they can explore the possibilities of what games can really do without the risk of corporations giving you the boot. So lets look into World of Goo.



Story: 8/10
The Story is well...interesting. It's not very well explained but the story is given through brief cut scenes and you are also guided by several sign posts through different levels planted there by "The Sign Poster" The goal is to save the Goo from the World of Goo corporation. That's about it. Not very deep but it really moves the plot along well. If i would put a theme to the story it would have to be "The Journey." The Goo going through pipes and buildings towers and so on and so forth to get back there world.

Gameplay: 10/10
This is where World of Goo really shines. It works buy using physics and architecture to reach the end of the level. You create these buildings of goo by using the given goo balls and attaching them between two points. There are quite a bit of different types of goo, some that catch on fire, some giant ones that will get chopped into different parts. The game gives you plenty of new mind challenges to give you quite of few hours of game play. Steam also has eight achievements to strive for, unlike most games you only get one through one play through so the replay value is worth it.

Functionality: 6/10
World of Goo has one major flaw, no options, There isn't a resolution or quality level to change to make the game work on specific systems. On start up i couldn't even get into the game without going through the config file in the application folder to change the resolution.  However the graphics level and simplicity of the game should work on most systems but i would definitely take a look at the Steam forums for the Resolution fix.

Immersion: 7/10
Immersion is a tricky thing to do with mind challenge games. When the puzzle was easy enough you could get into a trance of building the architecture. However when you come across those darned levels that you can't figure out, it tends to get infuriating.

 Overal Score: A-
Besides some issues with the options the game gets a well deserved A- for its innovation and creativeness. It will be nice to see more games from this small indie company or even a World of Goo 2 with more mind challenges.