The Binding of Isaac Launch Trailer

Everything about the style of this game seems terrible to me, but apparently it's a great game. I guess Edmund McMillen is an artist I hate whose games I like.

I don't even.

@PerryVandell said:

@AuthenticM: Let me be clear: This the deck is NOT commenting on abortion. The mother is fucking crazy and voices in her head are telling her to sacrifice Isaac for God.

Why are you being so defensive?

@Origina1Penguin: Check out the trailer on Steam. It's worse.

I would love to see this on consoles.

Love this game so much. If you have a sense of humor and a stomach for the cutesy-macabre style, you'll enjoy this. The game itself is an expertly-polished Rougelike.

Looks different , but im going to wait for a quick look before I buy it.

IT really is just the guy's artstyle.

he has other stuff tha twas weirdl iek this but not connected to chritianity so.. i wouldn't look to much into it.

And that's coming from someone who considers himself very christian.

Though I can agree that some parts seem a bit like they are trying too hard to force a point that this game isn't an appropriate venue to argue. If you hate what christian ideology does to people, that's fine. Trying to put it in your game about messed up flesh-monsters probably isn't the way to get the word out tactfully, if at all.

Say what you want about the "religious bashing," but this game is an absolute, totally messed-up blast.

@EgoCheck616: Dude it's not a deep discussion here. The title of the game is Binding of Isaac. If you look it up on Wikipedia you get the Hebrew story. It's about a son being sacrificed in the name of God. That kind of thing is not "fun" and even if it is a "fucked up story" as you say; It's in the Bible, the Torah and possibly the Qur'an (I don't know if it's there but it's an Abrahamic religion it's possible).

Also why are you afraid of examining an indie game's message? Many of them are attempting to make you think about it's subject matter in some way. Just ask anyone about Limbo. Or Braid for that matter.

Personally I'd like to know his motive for using this subject as his setting for this game. At the very least opening a dialogue shouldn't be something negative.

I'm actually disturbed by the items within this game (along with that crazy intro). Loving it.

to add a useful tip. since this game is 100% keyboard use something like xpadder to allow for gamepad controls. dual stick shooters feel wierd with keyboard. http://www.megaupload.com/?d=7CC2QO2W is an xpadder profile I made up.

left analog - movement, right analog fire

back - full screen

start menu

b - back / item from ground (q)

a / L stick - bomb

x - item

dpad fake mouse l bumper left click

@deankyle: It's actually not about abortion at all. Hell another trailer shows a live action full grown man as Isaac.

@Wandrecanada: This is actually a lot more similar to McMillen's previous works than Meat Boy is.

If anything, it was not made this way to "create buzz."

Super fun little game! For $5 you really can't go wrong :D

@deankyle: It's not about abortion. Isaac isn't a fetus, just naked. But I can understand why somebody would get upset at the trailer. It totally does look like another fetus joke

@Wandrecanada said:

Now I'd like to preface this by saying I'm not a religious person. I'm straight atheist. However I do know the story of Issac and the implications of what I'm seeing are incredibly disturbing.

After the whole Dr. Fetus business they seemed to get a pass because nothing was really overt about the characterization beyond that he was something that represented a possible inflammatory character for critics to buzz about. Thing about the whole Issac bit is that they seem to be reaching further and further for some kind of political backlash with their game. The Binding of Isaac is part of the Hebrew bible story where Abraham (Father of many Western religions) binds his son in preparation to burn him on a pyre because God told him he must make a sacrifice to prove his faith.

What I see from the game is woman depicted as a horrible monstrosity who is taking the place of a "heroic" male character doing a deed that is frankly deplorable by most moral standards. With Abraham he is seen as heroic for attempting the deed on the word of God alone whereas I see no buyback for the ugly mother creature in the game. All we get is the vilification a woman with no context who is taking a rather deplorable action on the excuse that "God told me so".

My questions immediately become, "Is this game a more clear political statement than the last game? Is it just something they're using to market the game with buzz? Is this even an appropriate venue to be propagandizing this message?"

For now the only answer I'm getting is the testimony of the trailer itself. I wonder if Patrick would be kind enough to dig deeper on this one?

Or.. maybe it's just a fun game with a completely fucked up story.

Not everything needs to be examined to such an extreme extent.

@AuthenticM: Let me be clear: This the deck is NOT commenting on abortion. The mother is fucking crazy and voices in her head are telling her to sacrifice Isaac for God.

Now I'd like to preface this by saying I'm not a religious person. I'm straight atheist. However I do know the story of Issac and the implications of what I'm seeing are incredibly disturbing.

After the whole Dr. Fetus business they seemed to get a pass because nothing was really overt about the characterization beyond that he was something that represented a possible inflammatory character for critics to buzz about. Thing about the whole Issac bit is that they seem to be reaching further and further for some kind of political backlash with their game. The Binding of Isaac is part of the Hebrew bible story where Abraham (Father of many Western religions) binds his son in preparation to burn him on a pyre because God told him he must make a sacrifice to prove his faith.

What I see from the game is woman depicted as a horrible monstrosity who is taking the place of a "heroic" male character doing a deed that is frankly deplorable by most moral standards. With Abraham he is seen as heroic for attempting the deed on the word of God alone whereas I see no buyback for the ugly mother creature in the game. All we get is the vilification a woman with no context who is taking a rather deplorable action on the excuse that "God told me so".

My questions immediately become, "Is this game a more clear political statement than the last game? Is it just something they're using to market the game with buzz? Is this even an appropriate venue to be propagandizing this message?"

For now the only answer I'm getting is the testimony of the trailer itself. I wonder if Patrick would be kind enough to dig deeper on this one?

So fistulas are a topic of humor for games now? Huh. Because it's "edgy" and "ironic" to make fun of a tragic epidemic afflicting thousands of prepubescent girls whose vaginas are ripped apart by giving birth after they're raped and then ostracized and left to die by their community. Can we set these guys on fire please? That would be awesome.

@Cogzwell said:

For some reason I'm stock on the loading pop-up

Give it time to load. For some reason It takes a long time to load when you first boot it up.

I did need to be reminded that $5 is cheap. Thanks Binding of Isaac!

I just found the item "Mom's Pad".... ew...

@Koobz: Awesome. Ok I think I will check it out. Thanks =)

@CornBREDX said:

Can someone tell me what is so neat about this game. The trailer just looks like a generic shooter.

I'm not trying to be mean, this is half of a great development team here, I'm just curious if the hype is just fandom or actually a good game. Whats so good about it?

I had the same feelings, but I plunked down the cash and played it for about an hour and wish I had time to play more.

It's Smash T.V. with randomized levels and power-ups/equipment that persist for as long as you survive (or until you win).

The dungeon randomizes its floors pretty well, at least in the six attempts I made. There's a lot of different power-up items and almost all of them change how you look (generally making you more grotesque and/or silly), and there are unlockable bonus characters (which aren't too easy to get as far as I my experience has gone so far).

It's very simple to pick up and pretty tricky to master. It feels a lot like Super Meat Boy in that respect.

If you hate the basics of dungeon crawling and dual-joystick shooting, avoid it, because that's what it is, but if you're okay with either, you'll probably get at least $5 of fun out of it.

Have been playing this today. Some of the items you can pick up are...questionable.

For some reason I'm stock on the loading pop-up

Amazing game, tons of replay value and amazing art!

Liking the Zelda/SmashTV-esque gameplay.

Is this an allegory on abortion?

Abortion: The Game

The look of that game is a kind of a complete turn off for me, but if it's only $5 I guess I'll try it out.

Can someone tell me what is so neat about this game. The trailer just looks like a generic shooter.

I'm not trying to be mean, this is half of a great development team here, I'm just curious if the hype is just fandom or actually a good game. Whats so good about it?

Well at 5 dollars it's worth trying out.

Lol. When I saw this for the first time, I thought it was gonna be the origin story of Dr. Fetus... I am disappoint.

Don't cry little meat guy.

Pink Meat Boy

@MormonWarrior said:

This looks awful. Absolutely terrible. I loved Meat Boy (even got an S-rank...really) and the look of it, but this has a terrible look to it and seems really uninteresting. Forget it. I'll take a hamburger over this.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels that way. I couldn't really see what was so special about this, even at $5. I loves me my meat boy too!

this game is great, it has shoop da whoop in it too

Really not a fan of the artstyle, but I'll let a probable Quicklook inform me on whether or not I should be looking past it for the gameplay.

This looks awful. Absolutely terrible. I loved Meat Boy (even got an S-rank...really) and the look of it, but this has a terrible look to it and seems really uninteresting. Forget it. I'll take a hamburger over this.

Looks interesting, will probably pick it up over the weekend. Going to play some super meat boy now...

I'm actually surprised how much i enjoy this game

Preeeeeetty good

That was really creepy.

Stoked!

yay!