The Binding Of Isaac: Afterbirth Review

The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth is additional DLC for 2012’s The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth. Afterbirth gives the game a complete make-over. Instead of being an additional level that’ll last about 2 hours at most, it’s actually a whole new game. “New” possibly isn’t the right word, as this works as a replacement or a re-skin. However, you are given the opportunity to carry your data over from Rebirth, so you aren’t forced to forget about your previous data. The main difference between Rebirth and Afterbirth is that they’ve added 100+ new items, a full new game mode and lots, lots more.

The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth stays safe and true to its classic gameplay style, as it keeps the fans happy on top of working well. This game is a randomly generated action RPG shooter, which is also very addictive. You play as Isaac, and your job is to escape becoming a religious sacrifice. So you crawl to the basement and shoot your tears at a variety of monsters to stop them from killing you. Although this all may sound a tad weird, it is explained a lot better in the game itself. The gameplay is relatively simple; you explore floors to find a boss room, then upon beating the boss you progress to the next floor below. As one may have guessed the game becomes more and more difficult as you go further and further down into the basement.

When proceeding through the floors, as well as the game becoming harder, you start to gather items that will aid you on your journey. There are items for literally everything: increasing speed, increasing tear strength, having a little frie nd that doubles your tear amount and basically anything you can imagine. Afterbirth adds a shedload more items as well, so there’s even more pickups to utilize. On top of items, your powers can also be enhanced be transformations; this means that if you go down to a certain number of hearts, then you become a force to be reckoned with.

Another factor that makes The Binding of Isaac so great is that the play time can vary hugely. You can have a 5 minute burst or a 2 hour marathon, and as it’s all randomly generated you can play for hours without getting bored. I found that as there is a wider range of play time that this game appeals to a wider audience, as it can be played in short bursts. So both the hard-core and casual gamers can enjoy the game equally.

There are also boss battles on each floor, and tons of new bosses and enemies have been added to this instalment of The Binding of Isaac. There are also loads of new characters, which give the player more reason to play. Avid fans of the Rebirth title will be pleased with this release. In fact, and fans of the Binding of Isaac series should be quite happy with the addition of Afterbirth; this is because it gives the developers a chance to add more content as well as ironing out the creases that may have been in Rebirth.

Overall, I’m going to give The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth a 9 out of 10. If I’m honest there isn’t much wrong with the game. There are countless hours of gameplay to play through, and so many items and bosses to find. This game has a huge amount of combinations to see, so the game never gets boring. My only worry is that Afterbirth, on top of the cost of Rebirth, comes to a total of around £20; and that this could be too much for a game people will play in 5 minute bursts. Unfortunately being DLC both need to be bought to play Afterbirth, but I would personally say this is worth it as it can provide hundreds of hours of fun and has so much more than Rebirth in terms of extra characters, bosses, etc. Give it a buy and try it out, you won’t be disappointed!

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary PC code was provided to Bonus Stage for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to press@4gn.co.uk.