World of Goo will do you a world of good

By Timothy Faust     11/13/08 6:00pm

Two guys who steal their Wi-Fi from coffee shops are about to destroy your GPA, and you're going to thank them for it. As the new independent game studio 2D Boy, Kyle Gabler and Ron Carmel, formerly of Electronic Arts, have lovingly crafted World of Goo into one of this generation's most innovative, accessible and entertaining games.World of Goo was released in October with a simple premise and a terrifying amount of detail. The main gameplay mechanism is easy to figure out. Each level is full of wide-eyed, amorphous Goos of varying colors and qualities. The player picks up a Goo and drags it toward a pre-placed cluster of other Goos, where the Goo grows appendages and affixes itself to the structure. Ultimately, the player seeks to move all the Goos to an exit pipe on the other side of the level. Each new Goo changes the weight and balance of the whole construction, making the game a limited physics simulator.

This design is interesting and fun by itself and would be worth a few weeks' idle time if World of Goo were nothing more than a tower- or bridge-building game. But it is more. We are treated to a game that is frequently challenging, often hilarious and permeated with a rare enthusiasm and raw joy that is visible in every single aspect of the game. From the installation menu - the installation menu! - which offers to "make [the player] dirty right now" to the very final level, 2D Boy has created a work with a devastatingly thorough commitment to excellence.

Each level takes the strategies or mechanics that the player has already learned and turns them upside down with a new type of Goo or an unexpected challenge. Not once in all of World of Goo's 48 levels does any part of the game feel stale or overplayed. Here, everything is innovative. Figuring out just how to work those adorable Goos over a windmill (or up a waterfall or under a furnace or even through a giant digestive system) saturates the whole experience with an air of concentrated delight.

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The visuals, sound effects and music in World of Goo, lathered in a healthy shampoo of quirk and charm, rise to the lofty standard set by the gameplay. Each level boasts an extensive array of colors and eye-pleasing environments set in front of lush, elaborate backdrops. The in-game cut scenes, which serve to progress World of Goo's surprisingly poignant and effectively satirical plot, use a catchy art style reminiscent of the twisted but enthralling works of Gahan Wilson or Tim Burton.

The soundtrack is glorious. Each level loops a one- or two-minute track, which, because of stellar instrumentation and scoring, never gets old. World of Goo features everything from hopeful carnival organ waltzes to mysterious minimalist tracks to tongue-in-cheek epic hymns to, in one level - "The Red Carpet" - a trip-hop beat catchy enough to warrant its play outside of the game.

Perhaps the ultimate appraisal of World of Goo is how difficult it is to choose a single part of the experience that is more enjoyable than the rest. It's not an entirely perfect game, but it's as close as anything on the shelves might get. The whole game has been polished over to a Goo-ey sheen, but perhaps its strongest asset is its playability. Anyone, from "hardcore" gamer to technophobe, can pick up World of Goo and play it for five minutes (or five hours). How fortunate we are that such an enjoyable concept is backed by such an extraordinary effort.

2D Boy's Web site is http://www.2dboy.com. A free and lengthy demo of World of Goo is available, and the full game (for Windows and Mac, with Linux forthcoming) sells for $20. The Wii version is available from the Wii Shop Channel for $15. Goo'd luck!

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