I think the summer heat is to blame. I’m not sure why I’ve moved away from the action and racing game reviews I’ve limited myself to for the past decade to devote myself to other types of games and a wider variety of genres. But that’s how it was, and although earlier in the year I was reluctant to deliver my articles on adventure games, games based on puzzles and graphic adventures, it now seems to me that playing more things in the world has done me a lot of good.
It’s very odd considering it’s been nearly 16 years since I last played World of Goo, and that was on the Nintendo Wii. Now it’s back again, and following on from the sequel that’s almost identical to the original, the people responsible for the first game are back. You’ll have to solve a variety of puzzles by using your goo to build all sorts of structures and buildings. Your black goo can form all sorts of building blocks to help you overcome even the most difficult physics-based puzzle challenges, and it’s rendered with a charming, humorous hand-drawn aesthetic that’s changed little since the previous installment.
The challenge we face is just as simple as the one we were given in the original game, the only thing that happens is that I, as a player, have to stop a few times and think about what to do to overcome it. At the beginning of each level, a certain number of “goo balls” are available that must be moved from side to side. To do this, you must build goo stairs that closely resemble a DNA helix, using special goo that allows other types of goo to move through. The idea is still a mix of Worms, Lemmings and Rolando, and it’s still fun.
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Compared to other games in the physics-based puzzle genre, (World of Goo 2) offers more story and narrative than usual. While the original was a satire on our consumer society (which was presented as a poorly edited children’s cartoon), this time the makers have focused on poking fun at the woke trends that are in vogue. It would be perfectly fine to criticize it as homophobic or even racist, but it’s just as easy to see the game as a rather light satire of our times. And while I could have lived without the story (and the monkey story that came with it), I’d be lying if I said the political jokes I encountered made me feel any discomfort.
The biggest novelty is the “Liquid Goo” that forms the basis of a good part of the puzzles to solve, something that was not present in the original and was much more rudimentary on a technical level. The truth is that it is an improvement that I like, but I don’t think it is enough to make this sequel feel like one when it is a game that we have been waiting 16 years for. The game has a potential that it does not exploit and the repetitions are noticeable, although some parts have a lot of charm and I can’t say that I feel particularly entertained after a few hours of playing (World of Goo 2), which actually feels quite dated. I must say that I am not the biggest fan of puzzlers, but that does not mean that I am uncomfortable analyzing and evaluating genre games and from my point of view (World of Goo 2) is quite passable. Nothing more, nothing less.
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