The Binding of Isaac's latest free update is the perfect excuse to give this GOAT a try

The best game ever made is turning 10 years old. The best game ever made is getting an update for online co-op. The best game ever made is The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth and this silly little game about poop and crying children has my heart and soul forever.

I remember the exact moment The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth entered my consciousness. I was browsing YouTube and stumbled across NorthernLion who, at that point, was making daily videos on it. Around 30% of my enjoyment came from his patter and wit, while the other 70% was enthralled by this game that looked so simple but contained an unbelievable depth.

I instantly bought the game for PS Vita and began my journey. This was around mid-2015, before all the expansions and balance patches. I was hooked right in from my first run through Isaac’s basement.

If you’re unfamiliar with the game, it’s a roguelike where you control a small child called Isaac (though you unlock more characters while playing) and defeat lots of evil beasties by shooting his tears at them, on the way to defeat your mother in battle as she’s trying to kill you with a butcher’s knife. There’s a lot more to it than that, plus a bunch of religious satire and iconography butting up against poop jokes and general grossness.

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It’s easy to be swept up by Isaac’s adventure. The game is, very loosely, based on The Legend of Zelda, and echoes of that franchise can be seen in the way Isaac moves, holds up items, trudges through dungeons with screen sliding one-room encounters, and even in the general idea of a little mute character defeating hulking enemies multiple times his size. Underneath all the puddles of pee, the stomach-churning body horror, and stark religious connotations, is a love letter to Nintendo. Just as Zelda starts simply - giving Link a sword and a direction - so too does Isaac get a weapon or item, beginning his journey. If you’re ever in doubt that this is Nintendo-inspired, play the game on 6 December and Isaac is reskinned to look like past Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, and all his starting items are based on Nintendo games.

As a roguelike, there’s endless replayability in finding items and weapons, combining them together to produce ridiculous effects, many of which will crack the game wide open and make you feel like a gaming God. However, even with powerful combos and endless instinctive knowledge of how each version of Isaac plays and what the weapons actually do, this isn’t always an easy game. There’s enough of a challenge, especially in many of the secret characters, that will continue to drag me back as I try to nail a better run or challenge myself by attempting runs without taking any damage.

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Some runs can last mere minutes, while others result in a game-breaking synergy and you’ll be grinding items to get the most ridiculous character build possible over more than an hour. This flexibility is a testament to the genius behind the game, Edmund McMillen - also creator of Super Meat Boy who appears here too.

In total, across PlayStation 3, PS Vita, PlayStation 4, PC, and Nintendo Switch, I’ve completed the game numerous times. I’ve devoted (when I last counted) over 3,500 hours and nine years of my gaming life - and three tattoos - to this quirky indie game.

It took me the better part of that playtime to see everything, or close to it. Some item and weapon synergies still elude me, and it took ages to grasp the story and what happens to Isaac while you play. The depth goes beyond hundreds of items, abilities, and mechanics. There’s an incredibly sad story running underneath the events of the game that the community kind of grasps, but McMillen has never truly divulged.

Many of the religious themes are a key part of Isaac’s story. His mother is radically Christian and we see her trying to kill Isaac, at least from his point of view. There are thousands of videos, articles, and theories from the past decade trying to work out what is happening to this family.

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Perhaps his mother hears the voice of God telling her to kill her son and Isaac runs away assuming different identities; perhaps Isaac fears the danger, hides in a trunk in the closet and the scenes from the game are his hallucinations as he dies from asphyxia; does Isaac have split personality disorder? With each update and DLC, new endings and cut scenes were added to flesh out the tale and we have a pretty good grasp of it now.

Isaac makes you question a lot. I’m not sure if that was part of McMillen’s plan or not. When playing, I’d often reflect on mental health conditions, physical health restrictions, ideas about God and the Devil, and family dynamics, all because of items, key bits of lore, or the game’s surreal nature in involving the player in the narrative.

Why am I telling you all of this? To get you to play the damn game. It's even on sale on Steam right now due to this new update for online co-op play, so you have no excuse.

It’s engaging, and brilliantly designed, and the community is filled with some of the best people on the internet.

I don’t doubt my opening sentence of this article might raise some eyebrows, but I will always say, hand on heart, that this game means the world to me and I believe it’s the greatest game ever. Like most attachments to moments in media, it goes beyond the mechanical brilliance of the art. Sure, Isaac is fundamentally a brilliant game, there’s no denying that but it runs deeper.

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Not only has it tested my skills, given me hundreds of hours of entertainment across YouTube and Twitch channels, and even helped me make some very good friends in the community, it has been there for me. It has dragged me out of some dark places.

It was there for me in the doldrums of a heartbreaking depression; I played to distract myself from thoughts of suicide; when I was going through divorce, Isaac was there; whenever my anxiety ran high, I knew the depth of the game would pull my thoughts back on track. So, of course, my attachment to this funny little dude, his alter-egos, and his adventure is understandable. It came along at the right point in my life and I’ve never stopped playing.

Granted, nowadays, my gaming diet is full and rich, but at least once a week I go back to Isaac’s world to just be there. My skills are rusty, and my memory of item synergies is fading, but the happiness and joy never abate.