World of Goo Review: A Fun and Unique Game
The most common misconception of the Mac is that there is a major lack of games. That may have been true a while ago, but not anymore. Nowadays, most developers release Mac and Windows versions of their games, and sometimes there are Mac-only games. Today we are going to talk about a game called World of Goo.
World of Goo is not only available for the Mac and PC, it is also available for the Wii. I will only be talking about the Mac version, but the other versions cannot be much different, so most of what I say will apply all around.
World of Goo is a very unique game. In each level, you are a constructor and you must build a structure to take the Goo Balls to a vacuum. It may sound confusing, but once you start playing, it isn’t. The graphics are absolutely beautiful, even on my 3-year-old MacBook. This is only important because most new games just won’t run on it, but World of Goo not only runs on it, but looks beautiful on it. It also has yet to crash on me, glitch on me, or even start lagging.
World of Goo has two main sections: the actual game and the World of Goo Corporation. I will first talk about the actual game. As said, in each level you are presented with many Goo Balls and a vacuum to get to. Doesn’t sound too hard, does it? Well, it gets very hard, mostly because it uses physics. So, if a tower is weighted on one side, it will start to lean that way, and even buckle sometimes. When a tower buckles, you do not lose the Goo Ball that created the buckled leg — he just falls. If he happens to fall onto spikes, though, he will not survive. It is also difficult because you need to have a certain number of unused Goo Balls to complete each level. These are the Goo Balls that will be sucked into the vacuum. But if a Goo Ball is sleeping, and no one wakes him up (by getting close to him), he will not be able to get sucked into the vacuum. As you progress in the game, you will be presented with many new types of Goo Balls, which also contributes to its difficulty.
The actual game in World of Goo is broken up into four chapters and an epilogue. To go to the next chapter, you must have completed the last chapter (in full). In each chapter, there are many levels that form an actual path to the boss. The developers did not skimp on this seemingly meaningless window, because they look just as beautiful as the levels themselves. They also may show you what obstacles may be coming up next. Sometimes a path may split, but you still have to complete all the levels.
Now, time for the World of Goo Corporation. This is where you get to do your own stuff. You just build a tower that goes as high as possible. There is no vacuum or goal, it is kind of like Free Play. What makes this section even cooler is its online abilities. You can see how high your friends have gotten, and they can do the same for you. If you are one of those people that is really competitive, or if you just want to show your stuff, then you will really like this feature.
There is really only one con in Word of Goo: it only runs at 800×600. This may contribute to its speed, but still, for the Mac Pro users out there, it would be nice to be able to change the resolution. In fact, there don’t seem to be any preferences whatsoever. This means no volume controls for sound effects and music. But other than that, World of Goo is a great game for avid gamers and casual gamers — it can be intense if you want it to, or not. It has a ton of levels, so it will not bore you easily. And, the best part of all: It only costs $20! For just $20, you get the Mac and PC version! And, there is no reason for DRM-haters to get mad (like with Spore), because there is no DRM whatsoever. It is a must-have game for any Mac user (who plays games).
UPDATE: We received word from the developer that it is possible to change the screen resolution. To change it, you have to go to: /Applications/World of Goo/Contents/Resources/game/properties/config.txt and change the screen_width and screen_height properties. It is possible, just not easy.
