I alternated between nervous laughter and being sort of grossed out. It was enough for me to see Isaac shout, 'Yay, cancer!' when he picked it up.Īt first, it's hard to know what to think of all this. Cancer gives you - ah, I don't even know or want to know.

The severed heads of various pets provide all kinds of buffs, as do Tarot cards, evil books, and so forth. The Black Bean causes Isaac to spew toxic fart clouds whenever he is attacked. Isaac can pick up the Stigmata power-up and start shooting more powerful bloody tears. There are hundreds of these goodies in the game, some passive, some active, and all are surreal, blasphemous, or an inventively sick combination of the two. The basement and cave levels below the house are disturbingly filled with big piles of swirly cartoon poop (that comes in all shapes, sizes, and colors) and poop-related monsters like anthropomorphic piles of crap that fling smaller piles of crap at you and all sorts of related creepy crawlies likes flies, spiders, slugs, and so forth, along with demon spawn like animated dead babies (that frequently explode when killed, spraying bloody viscera all over the place). Isaac's health is tracked with hearts (you start with just three, and new ones are few and far between in the game), and his only weapon is his tears, which form into watery bullets. McMillen really brings the weird when the game gets rolling. Despite all that, good luck walking away from The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth.

It's creepy, blasphemous, and obsessed with poo. The game always goes out of its way to be unique and maybe make you think that it has a deeper message, even when it almost certainly doesn't. At other times, it shows an internal struggle as Isaac takes on various doppelganger foes representing deadly sins like sloth and envy. At times, the game veers toward the Satanic, with various demonic options and power-ups. Isaac seems pulled between good and evil. The game also continually ventures back into strange Christian references. Finishing each level earns the questionable reward of a new cinematic, which always features some horrific nightmare like other kids pooping on Isaac, his mother constantly kicking him away, him falling to his death, and someone handing him a gift box filled with (what else?) poop.

So if you've spent time in a cult or have any sort of mother issues, you might want to close your eyes during the intro video. Just before mom bursts into Isaac's bedroom with a butcher knife, though, he escapes down a hatchway into a creepy basement, and the game is on. Apparently, taking away the kid's Game Boy and toys isn't enough for old Jehovah, who insists on mom doing the Abraham thing and sacrificing her son to prove her love. Isaac is on the run from his mother, who has some kind of prophecy/mental meltdown in the stick-figure opening cinematic and tries to kill her son on the orders of God. Instead of the usual warrior elf or whatever, you play a little boy named Isaac. Isaac’s mom isn’t just a religious nutbag, she also needs to rethink the way she cleans up after the family dog.īut that stock description sells the game short. Repeat through each level until you kill the end boss or die and start all over again a little bit older and little bit wiser. You run around constantly, shoot everything that moves, and grab power-ups.

If you've ever played a classic arcade game, you know the drill. The feel is decidedly old-school in that the top-down maps are randomly generated and you have to plow through the entire game in one sitting (so don't die, or you're going right back to the beginning). The game is a basic roguelike, with tips of the hat to the frenzied combat in Robotron. I still don't know exactly what I've been playing for the last six or seven hours non-stop, but I know that I liked it and that I want to go back for more.Īctually, Rebirth is easy to categorize on the surface. This remake of the scatological 2012 original from developer Edmund McMillen (best known for Super Meat Boy) doubles down on the dementia with even more surreal power-ups and bizarre enemies.

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