Game Review - World of Goo 2 for Linux

Remember World of Goo? The hit game that you loved on the Nintendo Wii? It was all the rage in 2009:

Terence Eden is on Mastodon

@edent

Ah. I appear to have spent the majority of the night playing World Of Goo. What an addictive little game.

---

Fifteen years later... and I spent all night playing the sequel!

Yup! World of Goo is back, baby! And it is just as good as you remember it.

In truth, there's nothing much which has changed. There are a few new Goo types, but the puzzles are all ostensibly the same - build a structure using limited resources. Use lots of triangles.

The art is gorgeous, the story is snarky, the puzzles are all solvable with various degrees of frustration. If you haven't played the original, you probably should - it's only an extra $10 in a bundle.

There are various challenges for every level - which does give it some replayability.

The soundtrack is delightful, the Goo are a silly mix of Lemmings and Minions, and the graphics are gorgeous. Chapter 4 is... different. I liked it - but I didn't think the voice acting was particularly good.

Perhaps it is a little short, and perhaps it isn't much more than an expansion pack of the original. But, you know what? I was just happy to be transported back to 2009.

There's no microtransaction or lootboxes. No online gameplay - so no tweens screaming obscenities at you. Just pure gaming fun.

It isn't the longest game in the world. It took me about 13 hours - which included about an hour getting stuck on one (optional) level before caving and looking for a walkthrough..

Linux Instructions

World of Goo 2 is provided as a DRM-free AppImage file. Getting it working on Pop_OS was quite tricky:

1. Double click the file to launch it.
2. Play the game.

Oh.

If you're running something more esoteric, you'll probably need to sacrifice a chicken on the command line.