Since when do I talk about games that people have played?
By Video_Game_King 23 Comments
World of Goo
( And that's another Humble Indie Bundle game down.) OK, so how many is that? Two I've beaten, and two that I can't play right now? How many are left? Five. Wait, I just remembered that there are two Humble Indie Bundle Games not available on Steam, knocking it up to seven. I should really play PC games more often, especially since I spend a shitload of time on one. Also, because World of Goo is pretty good. That's how arguments work, right? You just say two things that aren't related in any way? They aren't? Well, since I'm the King, that's how they work now.STORY! Your goal is to destroy the World of Goo Corporation. What do they do? They make stuff. What stuff? I'm really not sure. If you want more story than that, then this isn't the game for you. Thanks a lot, World of Goo. Thanks for destroying an entire paragraph in this blog. The only thing I can say is that the atmosphere's pretty cool, especially in the Internet level. But that's not enough for a paragraph. Now I have to talk about the actual game. The goal of each level is to build a gooey tower toward a pipe. I know that this sounds sexual, and that's because it is. There's a lot of sexuality in this game, especially when it comes to vagina allegories. After the first world (which ends on vagina), a large portion of the game is devoted to squeezing things either into a vagina or out of one. But this is no time to digress, even if it is for vaginae. Back to the gameplay, it's about getting enough goos into a pipe to move onto the next level. It may sound simple, but a lot of the levels require extremely careful use of your goos. You can't just build a giant rectangle, unless you want that crap toppling into the instant death spikes just a few feet nearby. You need some type of strategy to get all your goos into that pipe, and an utter shitload of it if you want any of the appropriately named OCD flags. You also need a shitload of luck, since all of this is happening in real time. This may not sound like much, but tell me that when you're grabbing a goo for your mega-goo structure, only to watch it collapse into the bottomless chasms below, dragging twenty minutes along with it.
I'm also not a person who thinks things out, because I have no idea what else to say. I feel like I've described the game as much as I can, and I don't feel like nitpicking the game. But I must, for reasons I don't understand! I think the biggest problem I have with this game is the controls. I should probably explain how you control the game: with a mouse. Yes, it is possible to have imperfect point and click controls (and no, I'm not talking about controlling a mouse with a keyboard, as stupid as that sounds/is), just as it's possible to forget that I'm nitpicking the game. You can move the mouse around just fine, and clicking does things, but try selecting a specific goo. I have not figured out how to do such a simple thing. I know that this may not sound like such a big deal, but keep in mind that the later levels stuff about a billion goos onto one structure. You know what else makes the game slightly harder to manage than it should be? Seeing what the hell you're doing. First, you can't really see anything that isn't immediately within range of your goos. This includes the pipe at the end of the level. Want to know where that is? All you get is a crappy little arrow, and maybe some scroll wheel screwiness. But still, unlike this blog, World of Goo is worth checking out, and worthy of the following award:
Review Synopsis
- Instead of story, you get humor and atmosphere. Make of that what you will.
- Tons of cool levels and goos to experiment with.
- Tons of physics to screw you over. Also, I give this blog the Worst Episode of the Second Season Award. Ugh. It's more of a disappointment than the ending to this game (so this is a prequel to Sonic 3 or something?).
And now I explain Fragile Dreams joke #1 of the previous blog.
Yume Koujou: Doki Doki Panic
( Damn it, not again.) You may be wondering why I chose to begin the blog like that, as if I've already said what I don't like happening again. Allow me to explain: remember my Bible blog, and how I said that Kid Icarus froze on me before I could see the ending? The same thing happened with Doki Doki Panic, only instead of freezing, I got an error of some type about halfway through bad ending 1. That's my reward for beating a giant frog? At least the Mario version gave me an ending of some type.Wait, I'm getting ahead of myself. I should probably explain that Doki Doki Panic is pretty much the Japanese version of Super Mario Bros. 2. I'd say that everything is the same, but it seems that somebody had the novel idea of fixing a few things in Super Mario Bros 2, like adding a run function, or scrapping the " we're twice as dumb as Ghosts 'n Goblins" motif. Oh, and did I mention that the waterfalls aren't sickeningly fast in the American version? Of course, they also fucked around with a lot of stuff that I wish they didn't, the story being the only example of that. Remember how Super Mario Bros 2 really had no story until the end, when it was revealed that Mario was trying to rescue his dream children from a hideous toad? You know, like Inception? Not in this game; in Doki Doki Panic, two children are reading a book, and they love it. They love it so much that they immediately get sucked into the book. Wait, I mean "forcibly captured." So the game's about them escaping this dream world, right? Not even close; four guys go in to rescue them. Are they characters in the book? Who gives a shit? I just really love the Arabian theme that the game goes for, since it makes a helluva lot more sense. No longer do you throw beakers onto the ground and summon doors; now they're magic lamps that transport you to an alternate shadow dimension where warps aren't completely random. Awesome. Remember those magic carpets? Makes more sense when you see a more benevolent Jafar riding it.
That really shouldn't be a surprise, since you've probably played Super Mario Bros 2 by now. What's that? You haven't? Go out and do so right now! It has...wait, I've already blogged about the throwing parts and the solid platforming. What else is there to mention? The lottery? Sure, it's weird, since the rules are more confusing the X-COM, but it makes up such a tiny portion of the game that I shouldn't really spend this much time on it. Instead, I'll just ramble on about all the secrets this game has, because they make the game pretty awesome. No, I'm not talking about all the shit you can do with the magic lamps, even if that's still pretty cool; I'm referring to all the crazy ways you can break the game. What's that? You have to get a key and do shit in the second level? Why not fly over that crap? What's that? You're using a magic carpet? OK, I can understand that in the second level, but in later levels, you don't need that crap. You can just ride on top of the Beezo things, kinda, and get across the gap in far more time than you would have dodging those bastards. It's crazy shit like that that makes this game cool, which is why I give it the Me Award in Excellence in Batshit Insanity.
Review Synopsis
- It's Super Mario Bros. 2, but with better atmosphere.
- Wait, who cares about atmosphere in a game like this? I just want to throw shit at other shit.
- Yes, this game is as crazy as it looks.