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Every so often a game sets out to do something that has already been done before, but it
takes those tried and true mechanics and damn near perfects the idea. As a result it feels
familiar and extraordinary all at the same time – that’s The Binding of Isaac. It
takes the replayability, permanent death, and randomly generated concepts of Rogue-like
games and mixes it with the addictive and fun nature of old-school shooters and top-down
Zelda games to create one hell of an experience. The story starts with biblical inspirations
as a boy Isaac sketches a tale of himself and his mother. In the story his mother hears
a voice that she refers to as The Lord, who asks of her to display her unyielding faith
by sacrificing her corrupted son Isaac, but, before she can carry out the heinous act,
he escapes into a trapdoor which leads to
the basement. The randomized dungeon-esque basement is where the game takes place as
Isaac must venture farther into the dark depths while fighting a large variety of monsters
and bosses. Isaac starts with just the tears on his face,
which he uses as a projectile weapon, but, as the basement is explored, Isaac will come
across different treasure rooms with golden doors, slot machines, and other means to alter
both his abilities and his appearance. The deeper into the dangerous depths Isaac descends,
the more of an abomination he becomes from gaining various power-ups. Power-ups may consist
of ripping out one eye so then it will bounce around the room to damage enemies, steam cells
that increase Isaac’s health but he then grows a fetus on his face, or a crown of thorns
that increases his damage, and many other disfiguring benefits. Isaac continues to mutilate
and sacrifice his well-being at the cost becoming stronger, he does this until the final conflict
with his Mother where Isaac then reflects the ugliness that brought him to the bowels
of his sanity. But the game doesn’t stop there. After defeating
Isaac’s mother you’ll unlock extra characters and new difficulties that open up additional
depths to the basement, power-ups, bosses, and even completely altered endings and totally
different battles with Mom. I died a ton of times before I finally finished
the game, but a gigantic number of collectables and literally hundreds of different combinations
to change the way Isaac plays made each trip into the grotesque basement an enjoyable one.
And each permanent defeat made the successful runs feel that much more empowering and satisfying.
At times The Binding of Isaac is as hard as steel, yet miraculously it’s also so easy
to pick up and play that a child could do it. I wouldn’t normally recommend a Roguelike
for a console or a PC setting because I believe the Roguelike genre by its very nature is
perfectly suited for short bursts on a mobile device, but I had absolutely no problem sitting
down to play this game for hours at a time. Isaac bound me to my seat for over fifteen
hours of gameplay so far and I want to go back for more. Seriously guys, this game kicks
***.