The tone and content of the game captures the feeling of being a little kid raised in a conservative religious household. That’s not what’s really happening in the game either, if you listen to fan theories. I didn’t have a parent lock me in the basement and threaten to kill me as a blood sacrifice - let’s not get too literal. The Binding of Isaac feels like my childhood. Indeed it’s not the gameplay I like it for, it’s the content. Yes, the content can be shocking, gross, ugly, distasteful and arguably gratuitous. I’m sympathetic to these criticisms.īut in the case of The Binding of Isaac I find myself in the same situation as David Foster Wallace when he defended Blue Velvet to his fellow film buffs. I think Steam blew it by letting Hatredback onto Project Greenlight. I certainly roll my eyes plenty when AAA gaming tries its hand at 2edgy4u content, be it the cheap, cheesy blasphemy of Dante’s Inferno or the increasingly numbing, boring gorefest of God of War. Well, I also generally roll my eyes at Newgrounds-style 'shock' humor. 'The gameplay is awesome but I’m so over the ‘edgy’ theme.' 'Oh, criticizing religion by associating it with piles of poop, how very /r/atheism.' And yet I feel the need to 'defend' this game because of the reactions I get whenever I bring it up among my friends.
