“I’m Bobbin Threadbare, are you my mother?”
And so begins the first ever drunken review of Gamecola fame. By god will I remember to check any spelling errors and spacing issues, but this is drunk all the same.
So Loom is the Victim. It’s the latest victim mind you, as last month we had Indy and his last crusade but Bobbin, he’s on a different crusade altogether. He is trying to take on his fellow weavers, be a legend of a weaver himself. Of course, despite the fact that this follows Indy so closely, it couldn’t be further from the same game play style if you tried to force it. Remember how you’d be forced to follow one specific set goal, and hope to stumble upon it? No longer, as Bobbin has his own way of doing things.
Lucasarts no longer decided to just throw a target in front of you and hope you pick the correct 3 or 4 items. No, with Loom, you were given the tools to try and figure out exactly what you were supposed to do from the beginning. In fact, the staff you were presented with from the get-go was pretty much the only tool you’d need for the rest of the quest. And do with it plenty you could. There was no more ‘try item on ****’. You were given the only item you needed for the rest of the quest at the beginning of Loom. It was a handy thing, as any little task you needed, you could be guaranteed that your staff could carry it out; you just needed to know exactly how that all worked together.
The storyline is simple yet satisfying. You are a trainee weaver who, after a run-in with fellow weavers, decides to embark upon a quest to save all of your fellow weavers from total devastation; basically, one-slipup, and you’re all fucked. With the help of your staff you can craft new weaves which will help you weave new colors, help you to create gold and new objects, basically let you have your way with the world around you. The more experience you gather with the weaving, the more weaves you learn. So from learning how to change color and turn things to gold, you’ll learn how to make yourself invisible, as well as how to ensure a certain group of sheep will no longer be affected by a nearby dragon.
Bobbin is no Guybrush, but if you allow yourself, you’ll still fall in love with. So he hasn’t had a sequel, he’s certainly had a much more developed storyline than the Monkey Island series could ever hope for. By the end of Loom, you’ll be wondering how the fuck anyone could ever come up with such a storyline, because, it is possible as proven by Loom. It just takes (now I’ve developed the hiccups!!! NOOOOO!!!) a different kind of protagonist, a different spin on things, and bob’s your uncle.
There’s not a whole lot more to it than that. It plays like Indiana Jones, only totally different, and it gives you a totally different approach to the Lucasart way of things. There’s no longer only one option, but a few. Take it as you like, but for gods sake enjoy the story line for what it is because by god is it brave. You won’t experience another story like it. So enjoy it. Embrace it. And by god make sure that you write down those weaves because if you don’t, then you’re fucked!
