World of Goo

[caption id="attachment_1239" align="aligncenter" width="510" caption="World of Goo: some weird creature patiently holds its mouth open for the gooballs to do their thing"][/caption]
This is the thirty-second post in our Game of the Day series.

We don't play the Wii much anymore, and not at all at home. Family typically don't understand my or my girlfriend's gaming habits, but Nintendo makes the news, and so we keep getting more stuff for a system gathering dust. The Wii sits in a corner, unplugged from anything; its exercise pad is merely a pedestal for the PS3. Last Christmas when we got a Wii Store gift card, I had to hook it back up, and decided to buy Super Mario Brothers 3 and World of Goo.

There is some brief delay, or at least a mildly different latency, playing Super Mario 3 via the wireless Wii-mote. A split-second difference between pressing a button and seeing the plumber perform it caused me to drop it like a hot rock and I doubt I'll ever return. World of Goo, on the other hand, is much more relaxed and tolerant of the imprecise nature of the pointer.

In it you slowly learn how to connect and manipulate little goo balls in order to get as many of them as you can to the other side of whatever puzzle you're on. Sometimes that's to one side, down below, or way up above. The cute little boogers make joyful pips and peeps as you stack and stretch their abilities, and mournful cries if they're lost or destroyed. Amazing how much emotion can be given to spherical liquid beings.

I really enjoyed my time with the little guys, and planned to push myself through the entire game, but it crashing. I don't know if it was the game's fault or the Wii's, but the entire system would lock up. I'd be forced to get off the couch to power cycle the machine and then, of course, all my progress in that level I was on got lost. This alone is why I stopped playing, because otherwise it was a superb casual gaming puzzler for someone who doesn't normally play puzzle games.