The Binding Of Isaac - One Shot

You're Not My Real Mom!

After bashing my head against The Binding Of Isaac for a couple of days, I can confidently say that I'm a sucker for roguelike video games. As much stress and annoyance they cause me, I really love the idea and the quick gameplay fixes they can give me. Isaac, FTL and Dark Souls (to a lesser extent) are all in my Steam library and I'm really looking forward to playing them, despite their insane difficulty and risk/reward nature. 

(Note: screenshots look a little wonky because the game doesn't support the Steam overlay, meaning I used another piece of software to do it)

This cute little game is actually straight from hell!

In The Binding Of Isaac, you play Isaac (shocking!) who is being hunted by his mother who believes she has heard the voice of God, telling her that Isaac has become corrupt and must be sacrificed. Isaac escapes into the basement of their house and proceeds to cry (literally) his way though evil monsters and other spawns of Satan, all in the name of God! The story is satirical in nature, but it worries me that you can easily see similarities to some real world event.

The art style should be instantly recognisable to anyone who's seen Super Meat Boy, and with good reason! Half of Team Meat worked on this game, which also probably contributes to the insane difficulty, and the dark humour. However, the gameplay takes a wild swerve away from the Super Meat Boy style and becomes almost a bullet-hell shooter, with Isaac firing in four directions while avoiding an onslaught of incoming projectiles.

There's some weird stuff under Isaac's house

Now, I'm not gonna sit here and say that me finishing Binding Of Isaac was all down to hard work, determination and skill...not in the slightest. I got damn lucky with item drops, what enemies spawned and the bosses I had to face, but that's kinda part of what makes roguelikes what they are. Sometimes it'll be damn hard and you'll be ready to give up after one attempt that goes south right away, but sometimes it'll click and you'll have a brilliant run. However, that didn't stop me reaching the final floor multiple times and dying.

But no amount of luck could've prepared me for managing to beat Mom on my first attempt, so that was a huge plus, because I thought that that specific run had been going terrible. But again, that's roguelikes, a terrible run can easily turn in a great one with one lucky item drop. For me, I managed to pick up an item that allowed me to cheese my way to max health, but it couldn't be replenished. As I said before: risk/reward. 

My Isaac has seen some shit

So, being a glutton for punishment, I imagine I'll go back to The Binding of Isaac in the future and try to complete it nine more times, as there is achievements for beating Mom ten times. But it's not just because I hate myself that I'll play it, the gameplay is tight, the animation and art style is amazing and humour hits in the right places. In the end, Isaac is a great game, and for £2, it's a damn shame if anyone doesn't own it.

Mommy issues

Next up...Bioshock Infinite! (With a twist!)