Day 19 - World of Goo and X-COM Interceptor

World of Goo 

Yet another indie game made with a tiny staff. I'm all for the indie scene, I can appreciate a game made simple and cheaply if it has a good premise, but I am definitely getting tired of PC games that don't have the basics of PC games. My first attempts at launching this game had my OS/Monitor freaking out over trying to achieve the resolution that WoG set out: 800x600. I find it hard to believe that in this day and age a game would default to that resolution, but there you have it. Furthermore, a search on the forum reveals that the only way to change it is by editing a .txt file in the folder. Hardly convenient, this is the type of experience I expect when playing some of the older titles on Steam, those not designed for modern operating systems, not something made in 2008.

Gameplay yet another physics-based puzzle game. This time around you use goo balls to create structures by connecting them as points in an ever growing lattice / grid. They will support a certain amount of weight, but the goo is not steel, and will tip or sway fairly easily. Your goal is to build towards the exit pipe in as little time as possible using as few of the goo balls as you can. Each level gives you a goal of how many balls to suck, with extra balls being set aside for the giant tower-bulding metagame, where you're pitted against others in a leaderboard style to see who can build the tallest structure. As you progress you'll use different type of goo balls with different properties, such as the green ones which can be moved and reused.

Some of the levels were challenging, although I beat all of them with plenty of extra goo balls. The game doesn't really give you much direction on how to build, but if you've played one physics-based puzzler, it's probably enough to understand how to put your tools to use to beat a level. Some of them towards the end of the first chapter were getting pretty crazy. In one particular level the goal was so high up that the only way I could beat it was building as fast as possible to reach the suction power of the pipe before my tower collapsed.

The game is decent, considering it was created by only two people, but I'm pretty sick of physics games, and to be honest I didn't understand enough of how the goo balls and structures work to get passed the point where a lot of it felt random. I played this game for 55 minutes, enough time to beat the first chapter and try the tower mode, and that's probably going to be it for me.

X-COM: Interceptor 

Interceptor, from what I experienced, felt like it was a bit closer to X-COM than Enforcer was. Your setting is moved into space, as a line of defense before the aliens can reach Earth. In this game you manage a base and pilot interceptor space crafts in order to dogfight with alien ships.

This game is very old, and it shows. The controls support the mouse, but you can tell it was designed for a time when people still owned joysticks, or preferred to use the keyboard. I hoped in without learning the controls, and nothing made sense. I died very quickly. My second attempt went a bit better, I spent about 5 minutes spinning around in space attempting to kill a ship, but ultimately failed once again.

At this point I gave up. It's nearly impossible to aim as your field of view is so small, and the ships move so fast that I spent my whole time chasing down an indicator arrow. The few times I was able to get the ship in my tiny FOV I had a hard time hitting it with my laser beams. Forget the missiles, as if there's a lock-on mechanic I was unable to find it.

This game was infuriating, and I failed to achieve anything and left with a very sour taste in my mouth. I only played for 14 minutes, and at least 3 of those minutes were trying to find the menu/quit button. Seriously, there is not a single icon on the screen that provides that option, and escape does nothing. In order to access the menu you have to move your mouse cursor to the top of the screen, where there is zero indication of a menu, and then WAIT, and finally a menu will appear. Why? There is absolutely no reason to hide a menu as small as that one is, on a screen with that much available real-estate. Truly infuriating experience that I have no intention whatsoever of coming back to.

Notes

This would have marked my 40th goal met if I had stuck with Interceptor for another 20 minutes. Not worth it, I would rather wait a day to hit 40 than lose 20 more minutes of my life to that game.

Album: Steam Challenge - Day 019