Gish is 34 levels of old school side-scroller fun. Typical story. Your girl has been kidnapped and you have to jump, roll, and fight your way to her through hordes of traps, puzzles, and evil minions. If that were all there was to say about Gish, and I were reading this review, I'd probably pass on the game and wouldn't blame you if you did as well. But wait! There's more! Gish's gameplay uses modern dynamic physics you thought only big budget first person shooters could afford. And the best part is, Gish actually uses the physics to affect gameplay unlike the "ooh how pretty and cool" physics use in those big budget shooters that has no bearing on gameplay.

Gish can slip, slide, bounce, and throw his weight around the gameworld thanks to the physics engine. Tight space? Slide through it. Need to get those coins way up in the air and count bounce high enough? Find a nearby wall, grab hold of it and roll along it like only a sticky ball of tar can until you reach them. You can jump higher and higher by compressing as you hit the ground and jumping again. There are lots of opportunities to break bricks and throw them around to break even more bricks to get to areas otherwise inaccessible. You can even grab a brick, roll it to the top of your body and hurl it like a weapon at bad guys. The coolest thing in my opinion is being able to grab hold of a brick, roll over to a lever or button and place the brick on top of that lever to open a door. Sure, games have been doing this simple trick for a long time, but it's just so much cooler to do when you're a boneless ball of tar. There are tons of puzzles to solve as you play. Most being dynamic physics puzzles. The combination of ways to solve those puzzles varies. Sometimes there's only one way to solve a puzzle, sometimes a few. The unpredictable nature of real-time dynamic physics actually helps the gameplay a great deal.

The only thing I didn't like is that if you quit playing, you can't continue on the exact same level you quit on. Instead, it takes you back to the beginning of that series of levels. Each series consists of three levels. So if you get to the third level in a series, you might as well keep playing until you beat it. Otherwise, when you quit and play again later, you'll be frustrated that you had to start over at the first level of that series.

The art in Gish is a throwback to the olden days of gaming. In today's world of First Person and Third Person action game clones marching side by side toward gaming oblivion, side scrollers might seem to be moving back in time, but Gish adds a few nice current generation artistic touches that the side scrollers of ten years ago could only dream about. The two coolest things that come to mind are the real-time dynamic lighting and the physics engine. Now physics isn't really an "art" thing, but the final result of a good physics engine affects the overall artistic feel of the game. Gish has some really cool dynamic physics including blocks that you can knock over and even throw around. The blocks will bounce and roll and knock other blocks over, etc. Gish himself, being a blob of tar, is made up of a system of bones that allow him to react to the environment as he rolls and bounced around. He will compress before a bounce and stretch as he moves through the bounce just as you would expect a living ball of tar to do.

The lighting is fully dynamic. When blocks fall or bounce through the lights, their shadows dance across the background. The character Gish is cell shaded while the rest of the game world is done with standard texturing. Personally, I wish they had cell shaded the rest of the game world and characters as well, but this is just my personal preference.

The audio was descent. The sound effects are what we've come to expect from this type of game. Not much more to say here.

Gish from a tech standpoint is pretty standard platformer stuff with a few notable exceptions; the biggest item of note being the physics governing the movement of Gish. There just aren't a lot of games out there where you play a ball of tar! The physics code behind this is nothing new, but the execution of it is among the first games to do so. As Gish rolls along, his body is affected by gravitational forces, friction, and inertia. The tech creates a cool and believable ball of tar. I don't know if Chronic Logic used their own physics engine or not. If I had to guess, I'd say they wrote their own considering the price of the game and the cost of licensing a physics engine. Whichever is the case, the physics engine in Gish is solid. It's fast and virtually error free collision detection adds not only a cool look to the game, but great gameplay as well. The dynamic lighting is sweet. It helps to add depth to standard flat shaded graphics. Again, there is fast simulation here with no noticeable bugs. I played the whole game with no crashes. Solid tech executed by a professional team.

Definitely worth the 19.95 download price from Chronic Logic's web site. I'm proud to own a copy of this game. Gish will appeal to both casual and hardcore gamers alike. It's a great game for younger kids (say ages 7 and up). Fun! Addictive! Don't take my word for it. Download the demo and get a taste.