[PC] [MAC] [WII] World of Goo

[icycalm]

http://www.worldofgoo.com/



Anyone played this? I am thinking of buying it, but I'd like to know if it'd be playable with a laptop's touchpad, since that's all I have at the moment.

[raphael]

I played the Mac demo. It's entertaining and does the Lemmings effect ("ok, just one more level" again and again for hours). I enjoyed it. But it is not one of those games that gives me urges to turn the computer on and play.

I played it with a mouse. The best way to know if touchpad works well is to try the demo.

[mees]

The main thing that differentiates this game from most other physics building games is the way you build your structure in real time. Instead of building an elaborate device and clicking the "go" button (pontifex, armadillo run) you have to deal with the effects of gravity the entire time as you add to your structures, piece by piece. On one particular level (I think it's called Fisty's Bog or something like that) the solution tests your dexterity--how fast can you pull a balloon off one segment and put it on another? Another level is actually timed, but its one of the easiest ones. Many others times you might find yourself in a situation where a quick hand will avert disaster. But then again, there's almost always a large stock of "undos" available to you.

So, I would say you probably are going to have some obnoxious failures (which could have been averted with a mouse/wiimote) but it should definitely be playable.

[icycalm]

I am currently playing this. Very good game, really (and very playable with a touchpad, by the way). Great looking and sounding too.

One question: what the hell is up with this?

The Wiiware version includes multiplayer with up to four people on the same Wii.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_of_Goo

Anyone try it yet?

[raphael]

I have it on Wiiware. I played only solo.

I'll test that next time and report.

[icycalm]

This game is really stunning. And the atmosphere is something else. Man, I just wish they'd made an action game with this engine + art design. Puzzle games are cool and all, but it's hard get too excited about them. Like you said, "it is not one of those games that gives me urges to turn the computer on and play". Every four-five stages I have to take a break so as not to get too bored. And I like the damn game! But with an action game, I could be playing it for two-three hour straight.

[icycalm]

The "Reviews" section of the official site:

http://2dboy.com/games.php

"This isn’t just the small matter of being one of the best games of the year, it’s also the emergence of a stellar new talent in gaming... a game that constantly reinvents itself, reimagining the possibilities, evolving and throwing out surprise after surprise."
full review at Rock Paper Shotgun

"easily the best WiiWare game to date and, perhaps, one of the best this generation"
full review at NintendoWorldReport

"A game so utterly charming, so pregnant with charisma, and so simple in concept, that it belongs in another era."
full review at Eurogamer

"brilliant, stunning, and ridiculously fun ... World of Goo is so good that it oftentimes feels like a title developed internally at Nintendo"
full review at IGN

"The comedy is implemented in bucket-loads, parodying the power of cynical marketing and the corrupt exploits of major corporations... and at this point I struggle to find a way to put into words how a puzzle game can explore so many themes. It's just incredible."
full review at The Dead Pixel Post

"I honestly don’t know where to begin on this one. This game is so startlingly brilliant on so many levels that it’s difficult to say ‘oh yeah that’s the stand out thing’ and then begin with that."
full review at Poisoned Sponge

"I myself gasped at a few points at the sheer brilliance of what I saw in front of my eyes. Words cannot describe how good this game is."
full review by Chris Evans

"Not only is World of Goo easily the best WiiWare release to date, it's also proof that you don't need a large development team or millions of dollars to create an outstanding video game. In an era of video gaming where style is often emphasized over substance, it's refreshing to see a title like World of Goo that somehow manages to feature an abundance of both."
full review at WiiWare World

"Before long, you're actually building your way out of a creature's stomach. First you've got to make a raft on the sea of his digestive juices, obviously ... ingenious and heart-warming."
full preview with PC Gamer

Bleh. All the retards/artfags just HAVE to be either hateboys or fanboys. There's no middle ground in this world of ours! No one can keep his cool for a freaking second and just review the fucking game with some measure of composure and dignity. "Pregnant with charisma." "Heart-warming." "Incredible." -- While of course it's none of those things. Bleh. I bet there's not a single half-decent review of the game anywhere.

[Nervicide]

I just finished chapter one... Good stuff.

Indeed, it does remind of Chronic Logic's Bridge Builder and Pontifex (there's actually a level called "ode to the bridge builder" heh).

The graphics are what kind of bothered me though, the little gishies look cool and act awesome but the levels are like a flash nightmare. It is as if some of the stuff on newgrounds decided to get together and morph into a game.

The reason I find the art style displeasing is the large use of gradients and the eye-poppy creature things you see in the backgrounds, it's something you encounter very often in flash toons; never liked the stuff.

There are different themes in the levels though, I saw a digital-electro one with a green tint at a friend's place and it looked really slick.

Apart from my small gripes with the visuals, definitely a cool game.

[icycalm]

I bet the game is unplayable with the Wii remote. Or at the very least incredibly tiresome and annoying for anything beyond the simplest stages.

[mees]

No man, the game is great with the Wiimote. The pointer is definitely the best part of the Wii controller.

[icycalm]

The pointer is definitely the best part of the Wii controller.

What does this have to do with anything? We are talking about World of Goo, not the "pointer" in general. The pointer in general is neither good nor bad -- it depends on the game.

So I can't see how this game would be bearable for long if I am sitting on a couch, say 5 m away from the TV. I could be wrong, but picking the correct type of goo is already a matter of luck if there's many types milling around a small space, so I think it would be even more annoying with the remote, and not to mention arm fatigue.

How far in the game are you?

In any case, I am already getting tired of it. The initial enthusiasm has been replaced with a feeling of "meh"-ness. I think I'll be moving on shortly.

[icycalm]

I now positively hate this game, overhyped-piece-of-shit. I just finished the second world and I am not touching it again. If this is supposed to be the best game on WiiWare, I don't know what to say.

[mees]

Nevermind about the pointer comment. I like having a pointer on my console controller; seems like a useful addition.

Anyway, I've completed the game, and many of my friends have too, and none of us were ever annoyed in the slightest by the controller. You can basically rest it on your lap and make very small wrist movements. Precision is just not an issue.

I have never understood the "arm fatigue" argument. I can only imagine that maybe these people are degenerate slime blobs. As for you, I know that you are not, so I just don't get it.

edit: Then again, my couch is probably only 1.5 m away from the couch so maybe that's it...

[icycalm]

I answered your arm fatigue comments here:

http://forum.insomnia.ac/viewtopic.php?t=2792

Other thing I wanted to ask you: since you finished the game, how is it later on? I am at stage 3-2 and still see most stages as barely deserving to be in a tutorial, let alone the middle of chapter 3 of a game with 5 chapters. Would you say it gets significantly harder later? Any astonishing new tricks introduced, etc.?

Also, this:

Psychlonic: Truly great games are totally timeless and will be enjoyed in years to come. If a new generation of gamers doesn't want to try them it's out of ignorance, not because the games don't hold up against the then-modern games. The only issue with the gaming community is just that over half of all released games are claimed to be "good" or "very cool", when in reality only one out of 200 games or something is truly great and all the rest is just mediocre timefiller. People give many games way too much credit since there is no actual criticism going on in the gaming landscape. If a game is mildly entertaining to a genre audience it'll be recommended over and over. Yes, these games will completely vanish within a few years of time and no will ever talk about them again. But there ARE true masterpieces that have staying power beyond the usual aging effects. Two games that immediately come to my mind here are Jagged Alliance 2 and Starcraft. Just don't search for them through Game of the Year awards or similiarily retarded industry hype. You won't find them through reviews either, since current gaming journalism completely lost track of what games are about. You'll have to find these game on your own by playing them and being amazed by them.

With indie games I think it's quite on the contrary. Those overhyped indie games (artsy or not) will be forgotten even faster than the commercial successes of their times. I don't buy all that "Indie games are so special!" crap. They all rely on gimmicks, and gimmicks quickly get old. Why do you think do they rarely last for more than 5 hours? Why do those oh so great new gameplay concepts don't spawn tons of sequels and succesful copy cats? Their underlying game system ideas just don't offer more meat than 3-5 hours for one game. World of Goo was a really nice and refreshing experience, but 3 days after I finished it I had already forgotten all about it.

http://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.p ... #msg132229

[A.Wrench]

I finished the game back when it came out. Though many of the later puzzles have very entertaining solutions, I only recall maybe three levels that actually stumped me, and even then the next time I booted up the game I figured out exactly what to do. The game introduces a lot of interesting things to its formula, but many of those things aren't used at all past the couple of areas they're introduced in.

Still, I'm happy I finished it. I always had fun learning to use new kinds of goo, and the solutions were usually really satisfying to pull off.

[mees]

The difficulty doesn't really increase. "Most stages seem like a tutorial for harder, more interesting stages that don't actually exist" is probably a great one sentence review for this game.

That said, the next world features a completely different type of mechanic, and the last world, only three stages long, is probably the most difficult of the bunch. I would recommend seeing it through; it's not like it'll take you any more than another couple of hours.

[icycalm]

A couple of hours in which I could be playing a game I really enjoy. So yeah, thanks but no thanks. You'd have to pay me quite a bit to boot this game up again.

So tell me about that whole new mechanic introduced in the next chapter, since I'll never get to see it. But do it in black font for non-spoilering purposes.

[mees]

In the next chapter (I think) building takes a backseat to a trajectory mechanic. You get these little green goo-balls and grab them as they mill about some base structure, then "pull" in order to set direction and magnitude of force, and launch them off onto (hopefully) a new platform. There is one level, for example, where you launch the little balls into orbit around two planetoid-spheres, trying to get them to latch onto a distant target. If you miss, they enter a terminal orbit and smash into one of the planets, dying. Also there are a lot of levels which feature blocks that you can move around, building structures in a jenga-like fashion (i.e. you have to be careful not to tip them over). I imagine that part is a lot easier with a touchpad/mouse and loses some of the challenge presented by the wiimote.

[icycalm]

http://insomnia.ac/reviews/pc/worldofgoo/

raphael has not yet come through with the 4-player report, so if anyone else has this on WiiWare I'd appreciate it if you would indulge my curiosity. Even a link to a blog post would be appreciated -- I haven't been able to find anything.

[raphael]

My TV is broken. I'll report on the multiplayer mode when I have something functional again (if you are still interested).

Very good review by the way.

[raigan]

Concerning "Debating Games as Art" and the other loading messages, I think those are quite obviously sarcastic/jokey. Sort of like the old Cheezy Software game loading message: "negotiating peace treaty with DOS........... terms accepted!"

[icycalm]

Oh, I have no doubt the messages were sarcastic/jokey -- EVERYTHING is sarcastic/jokey for the artfags. This is one of their defining traits.

It still doesn't prevent them from being intolerably annoying to real humans.

My TV is broken. I'll report on the multiplayer mode when I have something functional again (if you are still interested).

I was never REALLY interested -- not even the first time I asked. I am just asking for the sake of completion. This is the World of Goo thread and we already have the World of Goo review, so it wouldn't be a bad idea to have some information on the 4-player mode. If you don't end up providing this information, perhaps someone else will, next week, next month, or in a decade. The thread will be here until the end of mankind.

[FallingUp]

This game seems to have more depth than is first apparent - at least, if videos like this and this (among others) are any indication.

[icycalm]

They are not and you have no idea what "depth" means.

[Elzair]

To sum up: even ignoring all the artfag idiocy, there's precious little here apart from cool gfx and a neat 2D physics engine. So should the 2D Boyz get a free pass for making a neat little physics engine?

The funny thing is that 2D Boyz did not even make the physics engine. They just used the Open Dynamics Engine! Indie bums cannot even code their own engines.