The Binding of Isaac: A game review.

So hey! Let's review a game! Something I have never done and have no experience in! And hey my first review will be in The Binding of Isaac! What could possibly go wrong!?

Oh, wait.

Before we enter the terrifying world of amateur reviews, I feel obliged to mention how I actually acquired this game. It is nothing so petty and bland as just buying it, oh no, that is far too predictable for the amazing life of RYAN LANCASTER!

I got this game from the brilliant masterminds behind The Humble Indie Bundle, specifically, The Humble Voxatron Debut.

The Humble Bundle is a care package of games which become available for a limited period of time. You can pay whatever you want for all the games within the bundle, even 1 cent!* All the money can be divided by you to go straight to the developers, charities or the company behind the Humble Bundles themselves.

Not only can you you pay any amount for these games, they are all cross platform and all DRM free, you own the games forever on purchase. Basically, it is amazing.

I am a huge fan of the Humble Indie Bundle; It gets a lot of lesser known developers and there games a lot of attention, it is good for charity, it bypasses a lot of middle men so you don't have to worry where the money is going, and you get a while bunch of games for a bargain price (or however much you want to pay)! It's a refreshing breeze in a world of cold calculating business and totally deserves all the positive attention it is getting!

I purchased The Humble Voxatron** Debut before The Binding of Isaac was part of it, it was only later when  I received an email that The Binding of Isaac had been added retroactively as a bonus did I actually acquire it. So I technically got it for free!

But enough about The Humble Bundle (as awesome as it is), let us actually get back to the main topic at hand, that being The Binding of Isaac and why I've been playing in addictively over the past couple of days.

The Binding of Isaac was created independently by Edmund McMillen and Florian Himsl. Mcmillen was the mind and artist behind Gish, Super Meat Boy, and Time Fcuk, his art style and sense of humour is instantly recognisable in all those games and the Binding of Isaac is no different. The graphics are very 'cartoony' and the humour is pretty dark.

You play Isaac, a naked child who has chosen to flee into the monster invested depths to escape your Mother, who has received a message from God to kill you in sacrifice. Naturally with a title like The Binding of Isaac, there is a lot of references to Christianity and Religion in this game, it certainly doesn't pull the punches when it comes to the 'dead baby humour', so people who are quite sensitive to such topics might want to give this game a pass.

The Binding of Issac is an odd mixture of game genres to say the least; combining the old NES Legend of Zelda dungeon crawling with Rogue-like 'Permadeath' and random generation. There is certainly very few games similar to it, you go through each room, killing a variety of monstrosities using your tears to fight them off. Occasionally you will pick up bombs, keys, pills and tarot cards to help you on your journey and improve your stats.

You will also pick up a variety of items throughout the game, which the vast majority change the appearance of Isaac quite drastically, there are over 100 items available to collect, including your Mother's Bra (freezes enemies) and the Necromonicon (Kills all enemies in the room). 

Playing through The Binding of Isaac is no easy task. Lose all your hearts and it's game over, which will happen often with the tough enemies and unpredictable boss patterns. However it never becomes frustrating as starting up a game is very quick and is different every time. With the random generation and the vast array of items avalible in the game, you never play the same session twice, this is probably why I've have been playing it a lot in my spare time.

 

I wouldn't consider myself a completionist as I don't think you need to finish a game 100% to fully enjoy it. However I feel compelled to continue playing The Binding of Isaac long before my first finished play through. All of the items are interesting and often morbid, changing the game style with upgraded stats or giving you a certain power-up, it is always fun to find a powerful combination and see how far you can go with it.

I want to find every ending and every secret in the game, I'm not quite sure why though. Perhaps I am morbidly fascinated with the grim story and aesthetics, or I'm compelled to find the best item in the game. It certainly helps that the game is really fun to play, the controls are intuitive and easy to learn, though hard to master. It is really satisfying to see Isaac progress and be victorious in his escape after many (many, many, maaaaany) deaths. Though it should to be warned that the multiple endings you can acquire are not exactly 'happy' to say the least.

 

The Binding of Isaac is a really fun and unique game that I'd recommend to anybody, the grim aesthetics and the 'dead baby humour' takes a little getting used to and may be a bit grim to some people, but once you get used to it there is a great game to be played here. The game can be bought on Steam for $5, which considering how much content is on offer in this game, is a complete bargain! Go play it!

* If you actually only paid 1 cent for any of the Humble Bundles them shame on you. SHAAAAAAME!

** Incidentally, Voxatron is pretty fun to play, for an Alpha at least. Luckily the purchase comes with all of the updates for free, but right now there is precious little content in the game. Still, looks promising.

The Man Eating Machine.

Corporate Cannibal is a music video performed by Grace Jones, directed by Nick Hooker and released in 2008. It makes use of a variety of video effects to make it look like Grace Jones’ body is twisting and warping in impossible ways.

The effects being used throughout the video are relatively simple; the colours have been de-saturated to leave only black and white and a mirror like effect in certain parts of the frame to distort shapes. Despite this, the end product this produces is quite eye catching, creating this bizarre, alien figure, shape shifting in a seemingly endless void.

The only colours on show through the whole music video is black and white, this adds to the ‘dehumanising’ effect that both the lyrics and the shape shifting visuals are putting onto the character. It also coincides well with the warping effect, as it makes the parts of her body which are greatly exaggerated seem smoother and real.

The camera never deviates from showing the top half of Grace Jones’ body; however the positions of where the warping effect takes place change throughout the entire video. Close ups and extreme close ups are also used, sometimes highlighting or even multiplying an eye or a mouth. The fact that we never see her body makes her seem more alien and keeps her the centre of attention throughout the whole video.

According to Grace Jones, she was "very obsessed with the subject" of the video. She takes the role of ‘Man eating machine’ which she describes herself as a “a corporate cannibal, a digital criminal”. This could be references big businesses in general and how ruthless they can be. The fact that she is portrayed in the video as such an intimidating, alien being seems to strengthen this.

Unlike other music videos, the music and the visuals stay together. Without the effects, the video would simply be Grace Jones singing to the camera. I personally feel that for such a long music video, someone may get desensitised to the warping figure after seeing it so much, however it may be for the best that she is the main attracting and there are as little distractions as possible.

When I first saw this video I was initially surprised by the warping figure in the video, but I quickly got used to this and got tired of it. In my opinion after a while, the effect looked quite cheap; it reminded me of the ‘Photobooth’ feature that certain Apple computers have built in using the webcams.  I was quite surprised to find out the music video was made in 2008, as I initially thought it was released much later than that, the visuals to me seemed more commonplace for something in the early nineties.

 I do not think it is not entirely without merit; the symbolism and the lyrics in the music video is very good, and the warping effects do an excellent job of making Grace Jones into something completely alien. Throughout the video I couldn’t help but be reminded of the sci-fi short story “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream”. Perhaps it’s the line “man eating machine” that reminds me of it (the short story features a mad artificial intelligence) or that the warping visuals remind me of HR Giger, which the story uses his art as an influence.

Overall I felt Corporate Cannibal was more dated than it should be and went on for far too long, but it certainly was an interesting watch, to say the least.