Games are fairly expensive, aren't they? Not all of us can afford $60 every time a new game comes out, so this is what this is for - I'm going to help you, yes, you, find games that are relatively cheap ($10 or less) that will keep you busy for a good amount of time.

The first is something I have recently been playing, The Binding of Isaac. It's a mix of rogue likes, zelda and even a bit of bullet hell thrown in there. The game is created by Edmund Mcmillen of Super Meat Boy fame, he made Binding of Isaac in 120 days! That's pretty awesome if you ask me. The game starts off when Isaac's mother tries to sacrifice him and he jumps down to the basement where, for some reason, there is a shit load of scary stuff down there so you have to fight your way out and defeat your own mother.

The game is fully randomized meaning the room, items and bosses are different each time. Your basic attack includes your own tears (aww *sad face*) and bombs, as you go through the level with the objective of exploring for items and then defeating the boss, you will found a bunch of new things. While exploring, there are many different enemy types that either use melee or range attacks, pretty standard stuff but as you go along the enemies get more and more crazy. Once you have fought your way out of the room you may stumble across an item, these can do things from turning your tears into blood (increasing damage done) or have an ally come fight along with you. There are many different items that are all very different and they are all (hopefully) helpful to you in your journey. One of the best things about Binding of Isaac is that every item changes your appearance, it's pretty awesome how you can look like a complete fool or a badass.

There are also other types of items such as Tarot cards which can do things like give you items (keys, hearts, bombs) or teleport you to various different rooms. Pills have random effects that can be negative or positive and you have to try them out to see what they do. You will also be able to purchase items with coins you find, or you can use these coins in an arcade room which is you gambling coins to see what items you get.

Bosses in the game are varied and differentiate in difficulty, bosses like Monstro or Gemini are fairly easy whilst Fistula, Gurdy and Monstro 2 are more difficult. After beating a boss you will get a permanent upgrade that can either give you and extra heart container, increase speed, damage, range etc. Sometimes a room in which you can trade your heart containers for items will appear, these items are very powerful but will require you to become a lot more squishy.

There are also various characters to unlock that have different starting items and attributes, Maddy has more hearts but moves slow and Cain does more damage, moves fast, has more luck but is very weak. These characters are unlocked by doing special objectives in the game (collect seven heart containers, earn 55 coins etc)

The games length will vary depending on how skilled you are (the game is HARD) and what items you get. Personally, I'm around 10 hours in and I just got up to Mom, but other people have finished the game around 3 times by that long. The game has high replayability since everytime you beat the game you unlock new items to find, not only that but after beating the game 6 times it gets harder.

So what are you waiting for? Buy the game now! It's only available on PC and Mac but I don't think you would need a very powerful machine to run it.

Thanks for reading, if you enjoyed the blog follow me on Giant bomb or my newly set up Twitter. I'm open to any advice on my blogs so I can keep improving.

Thanks again!

Also, side note: The game has a pretty cool soundtrack too.

rougelike

@Example1013 said:

rougelike

What are you talking about? ;)

Thank you.

Also, side note: The game has a pretty cool soundtrack too.

Bumping so more people can get to know the game!

AM I WINRAR? But seriously, is there any difference between the retail version and the version on newgrounds.com?

So it's an arcade style game? Great, color me interested more. I don't have any expectations for this though, because I never played Super Meat Boy

@Barrock said:

AM I WINRAR? But seriously, is there any difference between the retail version and the version on newgrounds.com?

The one on newgrounds is a demo, this is the full game.

Congrats btw! I'll need your Steam ID to gift you the game.

@jkuc316 said:

So it's an arcade style game? Great, color me interested more. I don't have any expectations for this though, because I never played Super Meat Boy

Sorry you didn't win, maybe you will win in the random draw.

@NekuSakuraba: Damn, I wish other people had not commented so that I'm the only person in the Random Draw

I usually hate the guy who says this, but the graphics are making me actively want to not buy this game. Not the graphical quality, but the art style. Everything I've seen of the gameplay makes me think I would really enjoy playing it.

But the art. Oh man, the art. While the humour in Super Meat Boy was just as juvenile as in this game, at least it was limited to a handful of cutscenes. And they were so infrequent that the humour never quite wore thin. And then the actual look of the levels was totally fine with me.

But this game positively bombards you with cartoonish corpses, carcasses, deformities, wounds, bodily fluids, and everything else that 14-year-olds get a kick out of. I feel like buying it would only encourage McMillen to continue in this puerile Newgrounds style, which I'd rather not do. For the same reason that I hear a Blink-182 song and the lyrics don't do anything for me, the art in this game does absolutely nothing for me. It's stupid. I know it's stupid. I would feel stupid while playing it.

I appreciate that it's an original concept compared to most of the other roguelikes that are generally traditional fantasy settings, but I've come to the decision that I'll only buy this game if someone makes a mod that completely swaps the visuals to something else. Until then, I suppose I will keep playing Dungeons of Dredmor, which has legitimately well written humour, not "haha, isn't this gross" humour.

AM I WINRAR?

Edit: I'm really sorry I'm dyslectic so i didn't realize I had to post something else <.<

One of my favorite games of the year.