Braid: A Review

Braid is an inventive platform puzzle game for the Xbox 360 console. It is distributed via the Xbox arcade. It follows the journey of the main character Tim as he seeks out his love. The game is NOT one that you should seek out FAQ/walkthroughs on, as if you do that then it is an excessively simple game with no challenge and no satisfaction. All of the puzzles make sense as they say. You should be able to figure them out.

First we should touch on Braid’s distribution. It is distributed via the Xbox arcade which means that it is only available online. It comes at a cost of 1200 points or $15USD. Most Xbox arcade games sell for 400 or 800 points ($5/10). This really bent a lot of people out of shape as they felt that it was too expensive. Yet no one seems to care that MTV’s “Pimp my Ride” is $50 at Best Buy, or that tons of movie tie-in games (Cars: Mater-National or Bee Movie Game) for $30 that are basically just crappy advertising. I don’t know why people think that what has been rated as the best XBLA game of all time, and one of the highest rated/least hyped games this year should be $5. It simply doesn’t make sense. Then again, I’ve realized that I am not the “average” gamer in that I’m relatively insensitive to price if it’s a good game (at least if it isn’t priced like a Neo Geo game).

It looks like in the first week Braid ended up selling 55,000 copies. Not bad, but no Grand Theft Auto of course. Then again they didn’t waste millions in marketing or employ over 300 people to make the game. Actually the game was made primarily by two people (one programmer and one art designer) which is rare for this day and age. There were others involved that you can see in the credits but 90% of the work can be attributed to them. So stop trashing on the game for it costing too much. It’s a killer game, and after Microsoft took its cut (likely in excess of 50%) then there probably isn’t that much to split between developer/designer for 2-3 years plus travel, having others help, etc. They could have just each done database programming and pepsi ads or something. Instead they did this. Stop complaining. Back in 2006 he thought the price would likely be $20.

Braid’s main uniqueness comes in its time-mechanic, or rather time mechanics. Unlike other games that at best slow down time in some sad attempt to help players relive The Matrix, Braid embraces time, throws it in a blender and then throws it on a wall like a Jackson Pollack painting. You can reverse time, but some objects aren’t affected, in other worlds you have shadows of yourself in time, and in others the entire world is just… well different. Nothing is as it should be, which makes for an amazing mind bending game. Each world has a very unique solution and when you finish it you have a massive moment of “oh wow, that makes sense”.

In many ways, this game could have been on SNES, or even Nintendo. Like the Wikipedia, it wasn’t technology stopping this game from happening but simply concept. This could have been out in 1996, but it wasn’t.

I think the story is great, but it is a bit much to get your head around at all until the end.

Speaking of the end, it is simply a great ending. One of the best ending sequences ever, but yet some of the story can still be slightly confusing. The puzzles in the game are hard but not massively so. It’s just about right if you ask me.

The graphics are beautiful with a great vibe to them. Nothing is ever too dark or too light, but everything conveys mood very well. The music plays in very well with the game play, and rewinds when you rewind time plus does a few other neat things.

I’ll say that some of the puzzles are a bit obscure, especially some of the “late game” ones, but they are meant to be. The only one that I didn’t enjoy involved… a little waiting. Also one of them couldn’t be completed (as far as I can tell) if you completed some other puzzles already. That’s not cool.

Overall, I think this is the best money you can spend in gaming today. It’s a “must have” if you have an Xbox 360, and from what I can tell its going to be on the PC soon. Ya!