The
Binding of Isaac is a work of subtextual intercourse. Chewing it's
way through society's underbelly, and the macabre, blood spattered
basement of one unlucky little boy. Set amid six subterranean levels,
packed with fleshy ghouls and deformed, morose monstrosities, The
Binding of Isaac is a triumph for indy gaming. Brought to you by one
half of Super Meat Boy's Team Meat, in association with flash game
enablers Newgrounds (Alien Hominid), The Binding of Isaac is one of
2011's definitive indy offerings.
You
play as Isaac, an infant forced to flee the sanctity of, and cast
himself into the depths beneath, his once happy homestead, in an
attempt to flee his deranged mother and her particularly ill
intentions. As a happy mother and son, Mom and Isaac lived peacefully
together in a solitary house on a hill. Following some particularly
puritanical propaganda from the lord above. Isaac's mother takes a
turn for the mental and murderous, convinced that only the sacrifice
of her son can sate God's desire for proof of her devotion. In an
entirely practical move, Isaac heads to the dark and gloomy basement,
via a handy trap door, in a desperate last ditch bid for safety.
Little does he know, that this will be just the start of his
problems.
You
control your eponymous protagonist twin stick style, W, A, S and D
moving your infantile hero accordingly, and your arrow keys showering
all before you with er... arrows, initially in the form of Isaac's
freshly shed tears. That's right, if you're looking for an uplifting
cheer-athon, look away now. The Binding of Isaac's layout is
straightforward enough. Upon your initial descent into the
innard-pink caverns below, you will be presented with an empty room,
this room like every other, will have from one to four exits, one on
each of the four walls. Each randomly generated room will offer a
selection of varying baddies plus some potential prizes up for grabs.
Within
each of the six basement levels, one room will contain a boss that
must be defeated before opening a trap door to continue downwards to
the incrementally more difficult levels below. The one luxury
afforded to you is the option to navigate these rooms as you see fit.
With boss rooms identified by a demonic doorway, you may choose to
get straight in there and smush up some satanic bags of flesh, or
take the time to explore each room first, risking your life in the
hope of gaining further perks and boosts. Staying on your toes is
paramount throughout, rooms will often be populated by five or six
monsters or more, charging, spitting and jumping all over each locked
area, the doors to each confined space will remain shut until you can
clear out all the freaks within.
Testing
the mortality of Isaac's various mutants is made all the more
enjoyable with a bloody rainbow of power-ups effecting, health,
firepower, rate of fire, armour, and even character aesthetics. These
prove definitive in your quest for success and particularly in
rewarding your hard graft effectively. Certain randomly generated
drops will yield new kinds of projectiles. These might turn your
tears into blood or a chargeable mega bullet sicked up from your gut,
more effective the longer you hold down the arrow key. Finding
certain articles, for example a magnet, will modify the effect or
trajectory. The aforementioned magnet, usefully, will encourage your
arrows to home-in on your foes should you miss. The variety of
modifiers available could do with being accompanied by some on-screen
guidance. Most are clear, but the wealth available is hard to keep on
top of, particularly the one-use playing cards, often you might find
yourself using one at in inopportune moment, and only repeated use of
each will help keep their specific uses in mind.
Power-ups
can be purchased from vendors using coins found scattered around
(often retrieved from piles of poo – don't ask), you can also use
these to drop into a slot machine should you choose (the coins that
is, not poos), with extra bonuses a potential, but far from
guaranteed reward. This in itself, is a microcosm of the roguelike
brilliance of The Binding of Isaac. When you die, you are dead
and it's back to the start all over again. Learn by doing is the
order of the day, risk equals reward. Only through hours of
respawning will the idiosyncrasies of that one mob become
clear, and when to duck and when to weave. The inevitability of your
demise is key to the equation, and rarely does a death ever feel
unduly harsh. While relentlessly punishing, the hardcore learning
curve is as rewarding as it is addictive and infuriating. More often
than not, should you fail prematurely, Isaac leaves you with the
realisation that you were the one to blame, if only you hadn't gone
into that one room in pursuit of loot, it could all have been so
different. In all likelihood, your next run will be your best, as
slowly but surely, your bloodied moth, drawn again and again to the
flame, will gradually develop into a basement badass.
Isaac
offers up well over one hundred collectible items, too. Even if you
are able to beat The Binding of Isaac in just a few plays through
(which is unlikely), the randomly generated nature of the rooms,
monsters, items and loot means that it's essential to complete
multiple runs, just to experience the game for what it is, never mind
grabbing all the goodies. In addition, The Binding of Isaac boasts
four unlockable characters, each with their own balance of speed,
stamina and attack power. Not all of these require completion of the
game, and provide some nice alternatives depending on your preferred
play style. If you needed more reasons to keep playing, Isaac offers
no less than ten different endings, apparently (I have not, repeat
not, seen most of them).
The
Binding of Isaac's art style is ostensibly that of Team Meat's Edmund
McMillan, deliberately simple designs, brutally snuffed out as
quickly as they are brought to life. The brief loading screens
between levels depict a set of childlike sketches of one of Isaac's
chilling memories of rejection, ridicule and neglect. These snuggle
up wonderfully with the mournful nature of Isaac's bleak basement
setting. Each fleshy-pink room seems to pulse with sorrow and
sadness, many of Isaac's afflicted antagonisers carry themselves with
a destitute and disconsolate disposition. From babies crying tears of
blood, to sorrowful husks cowering in corners while belching out
flies, The Binding of Isaac is punctuated heavily with morbidly
fascinating creatures. Not least of these are the fantastic bosses,
Monstro – a giant head of sorts, flinging himself into the air and
burping out blood (he's got a big brother too), The Duke of Flies –
a fly-infested, rotting ball, and in particular, Gemini – a
deranged, charging humanoid, dragging behind it a deformed baby,
still attached by it's umbilical chord.
Some
of the bosses are subject to one of The Binding of Isaac's very few
flaws, though. Once you have got to grips with how they play, some of
them can be incredibly quick and simple to defeat. The bizarrely
named Larry Junior- a pair of segmented snake-like creatures, will
almost always navigate the room with no particular desire to attack,
leaving you free to quietly dispose of your reluctant assailants.
That said, the grim themes of each battle are enough to make every
one of them worthwhile.
At
times, The Binding of Isaac could be faulted for a slight imbalance
in the drops, as well. A dungeon might be generated with tons of
locked doors to rooms undoubtedly full of goodies to collect, but
very few, if any keys will drop from Isaac's enemies. The random
nature of the rooms can lead to some pretty sharp difficulty spikes,
too. Cruising along nicely one minute, calmly taking out floating
heads, might suddenly be replaced with a room full
of mental, jumping, headless bastards, hell-bent on chewing off your
face. While the general difficulty across a given level is fairly
steady, room to room can be a bit of a rotting rollercoaster.
If you
like your themes clean cut, then you could criticise that of The
Binding of Isaac heavily. Isaac is an unwanted toddler, his mother
wants him dead and her actions force him to retreat naked to his
basement, where he will fight, as mentioned, babies crying tears of
blood who will often continue to meander around having been
decapitated. Some of the pickups are particularly close to the mark,
a wire coat hanger that Isaac chooses to wear through
his head, in a rather overt reference to aborted pregnancy. It's
worth pondering whether or not such themes would be quite so passable
in a more mainstream game, then again, that's what age ratings are
for.
The
Binding of Isaac carries plenty of religious connotations, too.
Isaac's mother is a devout and misguided Christian, instructed by
God, according to the eerie intro sequence, to sacrifice her only
child, referencing the Bible story of the same name. Each of the
sporadically sourced sub-bosses are themed around one of the seven
deadly sins, it is as if to suggest Isaac must battle each to cleanse
himself of their relative impurities. The Binding of Isaac makes no
real attempt to clarify it's meaning or personal point of view. It
simply puts the content out in front of you and leaves it there for
you to infer whatever meaning you choose. However you view it,
Isaac's content is some of the most interesting produced in an indy
game, or in any game for that matter.
If
thematically, The Binding of Isaac is ugly, then it's score is
beautiful. A tense digital heartbeat, pumping blood through Isaac's
desolate veins, the haunting yet soothing 8 bit drums and wailing
synthesiser grow into predatory guitar riffs at will. In moments of
heightened tension so grows the music with it, in the latter stages,
the sinister ostinato becomes more noticeable and dramatic,
thunderous drums and a more orchestral tone replacing what came
before. Great music in games is often subtle enough to not be noticed
but powerful enough to effect drama, tension and atmosphere, The
Binding of Isaac achieves the ultimate happy medium.
The
Binding of Isaac is a brilliant slice of Indy gaming satire. It's
everything an indy game should be. Quirky, funny and controversial,
challenging yet easy to pick up and even easier to keep playing.
Fiendishly difficult at times but universally rewarding. It has
flaws, but not many. Any it does have can be forgiven thanks to what,
at Isaac's core, is a frenetic and addictive gameplay experience
requiring quick thinking and even quicker reactions. While,
technically, The Binding of Isaac might be completable in around just
an hour, you'd have to be crazier than a deluded Christian housewife
to spend any less than hours of your time unwrapping this gory indy
gift.
Mecha
Score 8.0
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