Few games have captured my heart with the same ease that indie developer 2D Boy's World of Goo has done. While only a 43mb WiiWare game, it surprisingly trumps many of Nintendo's big-name titles in terms of soul, and provides a gameplay experience that is tight, refined, and easy to pick up yet difficult to master. While only a glorified physics simulator at heart, World of Goo is such an enjoyable ride that it should find its way into any Wii-owner's library.
The premise of the game is simple: Connect goo balls to each other to build towering, wobbly structures in an attempt to reach each level's exit pipe. Goo balls connect to each other via flimsy strands of goo, acquiring their strength through sheer numbers as the player adds more and more goo balls to their structure. As vertical towers get higher, they begin to sway back and forth, threatening to topple, while horizontal bridges begin to sag the further they have to stretch. Each level in the game requires you to build a different type of structure to reach the pipe, with varying terrain and obstacles for you to take into account. The game is anything but predictable.
Throughout the game, you're introduced to several different types of goo. The standard black goo connect to other goo balls with two strands, and can't be removed from a structure once put into place. Green goo balls connect via three strands (making them very stable), and can be unattached at your preference. Balloon goo balls float, and can be used to hold up sagging bridges. Spiky goo balls can attach to any surface and will never let go. There are even giant Beauty goo balls which are too big to fit into the exit pipe, and often need to be crushed into smaller pieces before you can pass the level.
As mentioned before, levels themselves are remarkably varied. Early levels simply have you build a tower or a bridge of varying length in order to get to the pipe, but things get much more imaginative later on. One level has you using Balloon goos to carry a small goo structure through the air, over the top of a windmill that will carve up any goo structure it comes into contact with. Another level has you building a chain of black goos over the top of three terrain obstacles, then rolling a Beauty goo along it, into the grinder at the end of the chain. Another level has you building a tall tower that you then have to topple, slinky-style, from one island to the next. Reaching the pipe is never easy, and more often than not, the way in which you're supposed to go about completing your objective is not entirely obvious.
You also have to take into consideration that a certain number of goo balls have to be free (ie. not used in your structure) in order to escape through the pipe at the end, which means if you use all your goo just getting to the pipe, you won't actually beat the level. Occasionally the game provides you with jet-black goo balls, useless little bastards who can't be connected to any structures at all, their sole purpose being to make sure you've got something left over once you reach the pipe.
The game's story is perhaps its most charming aspect. In each level, you'll see little wooden signs, each of them written by a mysterious person calling himself "The Sign Painter". These signs tell most of the game's story and set the scene for each level. The Sign Painter is often cheeky in his writings; In one level, he tells us about his rock-hard abs and details his cardio routine (unbelievably, this is also a clue as to how to beat the level). In another, he tells the player that the level is impossible, and that you may as well give up, since nobody will know ("- But the Sign Painter will know.").
Any aspects of the story not described by the Sign Painter are instead told through Flash-like cutscenes. It is through these cutscenes that you are introduced to the World of Goo Corporation, an evil corporation that manufactures products out of goo balls for use by humans. The goo balls, who only want to follow their natural instincts and climb higher and higher into the sky, take action against the World of Goo Corporation and slowly attempt to bring it down from the inside. The game's story is simple and is told through comical means, but the innocence of the goo balls is unmistakable and the epic nature of their quest is not easily forgotten. For all its charm and wackiness, the game's story is remarkably well-told and poignant.
The game features very little in the way of music, utilizing many of the same tracks for each level in the game. Thankfully, the music is very well done and awfully catchy, with none of the tracks ever starting to grate. This may have something to do with the fact that the game is fairly short - five hours at most - but I'm not going to knock it for that. With Nintendo enforcing rather obscene size-constraints on WiiWare titles, I'll take what I can get.
In terms of complaints, there really isn't much to say. Aside from being a bit shorter than it deserves to be, there's nothing wrong with the game at a visual, audio or gameplay level. Early on in the game I did notice that the suction of the exit pipe could be cheaply manipulated to make unstable structures remain upright, and I was more than ready to complain about it in my review, however the game had the cheek to build an entire level around that manipulation, titling the level "It's not a bug, it's a feature!". How could I complain about it after that?
The bottom line is that World of Goo is an amazing experience. The physics-based gameplay is remarkably fun and implemented in an innovative way, the game is long enough to justify a purchase but not too long it overstays its welcome (think Portal), and the presentation is absolutely top notch. Of course, the game isn't exactly action-packed and if that's what you're into, the strategy-centric experience offered here might not appeal to you. But if all you're looking for in your WiiWare is an immensely enjoyable time-sink, then World of Goo is most definitely worth a purchase.
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