World of Goo (PC, 2008)

Here is a game that honestly surprised me at how deep, even profound, it got.  Yes, a physics-puzzle game starring adorable blobs of slime had moments of unbelievable profoundness.  Said balls of slime are the goo-balls, who are travelling across the land, trying to escape the clutches of the World of Goo Corporation, who wish to use them for science, electricity, and other means.  The goo-balls can link together to form structures like towers and bridges, and try to reach the pipes at the end of the level to continue on.
Being a physics-puzzle game, playing is not as simple as building a structure from point A to B.  The goo-balls have weight, and the links between them are elastic.  Try to build them too high or too wide and they will collapse.  You need to build them thick for support, and use the various other types of goo to help.  There are goo-balls that can be broken off of the chain and replaced, ones that float (like a balloon), and giant go-balls that must be ground down to collect, to name a few.  Each level has a hint on a post left by the mysterious "helpful sign painter".
These puzzles offer a great challenge, which is rarely frustrating.  In one stage, you must build a goo bridge over a chasm, building down one side to offer support and then across.  In another level, you must use the "drool" goo (which can make only one link with another goo-ball) with balloons to to over and around a giant, hazardous wind mill.  One of the most memorable levels starts with the goo-balls helpless at the bottom of what seems to be a well.  You must build them into a big ball to expand your way up and out to what reveals to be the mouth of a creature (you have just slithered out of its esophagus).  Using its eyes as balloons, the goo-balls fly away to the next chapter.
The graphics in this game are colorful and stylish.  I would compare the look of the game to perhaps what F.W. Murnau would doodle in a notepad.  Cartoon expressionism.  Everything is slanted, skewed, and slightly off-kilter.  While following the same art style, it should also be noted that each "chapter" of the game has a unique look and feel to it.  Chapter two is a land of power plants and generators, and everything is mechanized, rusty, and inorganic.  Chapter three, a factory, is apocalyptic, oppressive, and hopeless.  Chapter four takes place inside of a computer world, where everything is digital, neon, and angular.

WARNING!  THE FOLLOWING CONTAINS PLOT SPOILERS FOR WORLD OF GOO!

The profound moments come after the first chapter of the game.  In Chapter two, we learn that the World of Goo Corporation wants to find a clean, alternative energy source, having something to do with the goo-balls.  Past the abandoned wind and nuclear generators, there lies a giant monument that resembles a woman.  We find out that this was actually an old electric generator that ran on beauty, but as it grew older, its potency wore off and eventually was shut down.  Using the goo-balls as plastic surgery, the beauty generator provides clean electricity once again.
In chapter three, the factory, the citizens of this world are excited for the unveiling of World Of Goo Corps. newest product, known only as "Product Z".  The goo-balls are trying to navigate and escape the factory, all of its forgotten and failed experimental merchandise haunting the memories of the player.  The exits in this chapter are typically only accessible by destroying or dismantling one of these nightmarish machinations.  On the last level of the chapter, the goo-balls find that they have been used the whole time to fire up the launch of Product Z, which turns out to be a laser that converts the whole world into the internet.
Chapter four is the new world of this internet.  The landscape is vacant, with bits of pointless information clogging up the tubes.  One level has you collecting pieces of a chat-room conversation, which are made of digital goo.  The goo-balls come across a search engine called MOM who tells them that the way to fix the world and end the World of Goo Corps. is to go to the depths of the recycle bin and un-delete every piece of information within.  They do so, and the Corps. is overrun with information, which blows up the HQ, restoring the world to its prior state.
There is an epilogue with levels to complete, but it basically equates to "beyond the end" and nothing more.  But beyond the epilogue is a clever little scene that sarcastically stabs at Downloadable Content (DLC).  In a lot of games nowaday, DLC is a sly way for a game developer to squeeze more money out of consumers without delivering much of a product.  In this scene in World of Goo, a little sales shack lies by a cliff in the middle of nowhere.  The proprietor of this DLC stand is interested in selling you a World of Goo T-shirt, or tourist's map (but upon inspection of his inventory, discovers he is fresh out).  Eventually, he settles on giving you the only thing left in stock.  When you go to look at it, it is a blimp with a banner that reads, "I bought a blimp".

SPOILERS END HERE.

World of Goo is part of the indie movement, made by the studio 2D Boy.  The indie movement has only grown stronger over time.  These are mostly games that seek to be art in a market that is so sure that games are only good as entertainment.  Where most studio releases all stick to the same tried-and-true formulas, games like World of Goo are unlike any other that exists, combining beautiful art design with thoughtful and original gameplay.  If there is anyone working to vindicate video games as an art form, it is our independent auteurs.