Jonny
05-27-2009, 05:31 PM
Time manipulation, obsession and the first game soundtrack I actually bought.
http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/853/853517/braid-20080220010547440_640w.jpg
Now I don't know about you, but generally I pay little to no attention to any of the games on Xbox Live Arcade. Sure, I may dowload the odd demo when there's no 'proper' games out for me to play, but I usually leave unimpressed, delete it from my hard drive and never think of it again. Braid is different. It's part platformer and part puzzler which is both incredibly innovative and rewarding to play, in addition to being a fantastic weapon to pull out in your games-as-art arguments.
http://xboxlivemedia.ign.com/xboxlive/image/article/891/891376/braid-20080716074230623_640w.jpg
From screenshots, like the one above, you would be forgiven for thinking that Braid was just some quirkly little Mario clone, but nothing could be further from the truth. Braid pays a nice homage to Mario and 2D platformers in general, but at the same time it is a fantastic game on it's own merits.
Reason to love Braid #1: The Story
At the beginning of Braid, you find yourself running across a bridge at night, up a driveway and into a house. This house acts as the hub of the game, and contains five rooms, each with a large empty picture frame and a door leading into each of the game's separate worlds. The story of Braid is told out through books found through each of these doors, before starting the world itself. The story is probably one of my favourite things about Braid. At first it seems like yet another homage to the classic platformers of old (it tells the story of a missing princess whom Tim is searcing for) but as it unfolds in later chapters you realise that the game is full of subtext, double (or even triple) meanings and leaves you thinking about it long after you've finished the (unfortunately rather short) game. What starts as a simple rescue-the-princess story seemingly transitions into a tale of obsession, remorse and the a-bomb tests (seriously). In another homage to retro gaming, at the end of each world you run up to a castle. As you get there a strange dinosaur creature walks out and informs you that ''the Princess is in another castle''. Braid takes one of the most well known classic videogame lines at gives it a far deeper metaphorical meaning which becomes clear the further you progress. In addition to this, each world contains a number of jigsaw pieces you need to collect to fill the frame in each room in the hub house, and each of these reveals more about the character of Tim, but like a lot of the other story elements in Braid, nothing is obvious and everything is shown subtely enough that you can make up your own mind what each picture means. Then, by the end of the last level (world 1, which comes after world 6. You start in world 2) your entire perception of the game is flipped on its head. The story in Braid is certainly one that will stay with you for a long time.
http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/853/853517/braid-20080220010603377_640w.jpg
Reason to love Braid #2: The Gameplay
Now I've prattled on for a long time about the story but said nothing about the game itself. Like the story, on the surface Braid is deceptively simple. You walk left and right, you climb ladders, and you jump. But in addition to this, you can also rewind time. It's this feature which makes for Braid's immensely satisfying puzzles. In world 2 (that's the one you start at), rewinding time is not really necessary, it's just a way to cheat death as you progress through the level, but each world after that throws a new twist on this power which you need to master to collect all the jigsaw pieces. World 3 introduces objects and enemies which are not affected by your time reversal, resulting in some rather clever puzzles which you can spend ages working on, only to realise after you've solved it that the solution was actually pretty blinkin' obvious. Later worlds include an orb you can drop which has a black hole-like affect and slows time around it to a crawl. This is necessary to get platforms to slow so you can cross chasms and so forth. Another includes a shadow version of yourself, so when you rewind time and then start it again, this shadow you will go and act out everything you just did before the rewind. Another world remains completely stationary, enemies and everything, while you're standing still, but as you walk to the right everything starts moving like normal and when you walk left everything starts to go backwards.
http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/853/853517/braid-20080220010600877_640w.jpg
Reason to love Braid #3: The Graphical Style
The first thing you'll probably notice about Braid from the screenshots are the graphics. You play as a man named Tim who, as you can see, is probably one of the most unusual videogame heroes you will ever play as, with his floppy red hair, suit and tie. The enemies in the game, while not having much variation (not much is needed, since the game is not about them- they are more of a puzzle-solving device) are interesting and just slightly off-looking, so like and one-legged midget, you feel uneasy looking at them but you can't seem to stop. The backgrounds are beautiful and exude an almost oil-painting quality, and it never gets boring to look at.
Reason to love Braid #4: The Music
The sound, too, is excellent, and while Tim himself makes very little noise (apart from jumping) and the enemies are pretty quiet, the soundtrack to the game is perfect. The soundtrack is made up from actual licenced tracks rather than music composed from the game, which can usually be hit-or-miss, but in Braid a lot of the tracks just sound like they belong there. World 2 (the one you start at, remember?) has a very nice folky instrumental piece (which has now found it's way onto my ipod) and the in the worlds after that, the tempo changes to become darker and more brooding, as the story itself does. The entire soundtrack seems to exude an aura of melancholy over the entire game, and this along with the graphics and the story, make it far more immersive than a hundred next-gen FPS's.
To summarise, Braid is an excellent game which deserves to be played by anyone wanting to play something a bit different, anyone who appreciates a truely artistic game and anyone looking for a good mental challenge.
Positives:
+ Brilliant Puzzles
+ Atmospheric
+ Makes you think
+ Artistic
Negatives:
- Short
- Little replay value...
... unless you opt to do the time trial challenges, which are fiendishly difficult to do, or find all the hidden stars, which is impossible without the internet's help, and even then is very hard.
http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/853/853517/braid-20080220010547440_640w.jpg
Now I don't know about you, but generally I pay little to no attention to any of the games on Xbox Live Arcade. Sure, I may dowload the odd demo when there's no 'proper' games out for me to play, but I usually leave unimpressed, delete it from my hard drive and never think of it again. Braid is different. It's part platformer and part puzzler which is both incredibly innovative and rewarding to play, in addition to being a fantastic weapon to pull out in your games-as-art arguments.
http://xboxlivemedia.ign.com/xboxlive/image/article/891/891376/braid-20080716074230623_640w.jpg
From screenshots, like the one above, you would be forgiven for thinking that Braid was just some quirkly little Mario clone, but nothing could be further from the truth. Braid pays a nice homage to Mario and 2D platformers in general, but at the same time it is a fantastic game on it's own merits.
Reason to love Braid #1: The Story
At the beginning of Braid, you find yourself running across a bridge at night, up a driveway and into a house. This house acts as the hub of the game, and contains five rooms, each with a large empty picture frame and a door leading into each of the game's separate worlds. The story of Braid is told out through books found through each of these doors, before starting the world itself. The story is probably one of my favourite things about Braid. At first it seems like yet another homage to the classic platformers of old (it tells the story of a missing princess whom Tim is searcing for) but as it unfolds in later chapters you realise that the game is full of subtext, double (or even triple) meanings and leaves you thinking about it long after you've finished the (unfortunately rather short) game. What starts as a simple rescue-the-princess story seemingly transitions into a tale of obsession, remorse and the a-bomb tests (seriously). In another homage to retro gaming, at the end of each world you run up to a castle. As you get there a strange dinosaur creature walks out and informs you that ''the Princess is in another castle''. Braid takes one of the most well known classic videogame lines at gives it a far deeper metaphorical meaning which becomes clear the further you progress. In addition to this, each world contains a number of jigsaw pieces you need to collect to fill the frame in each room in the hub house, and each of these reveals more about the character of Tim, but like a lot of the other story elements in Braid, nothing is obvious and everything is shown subtely enough that you can make up your own mind what each picture means. Then, by the end of the last level (world 1, which comes after world 6. You start in world 2) your entire perception of the game is flipped on its head. The story in Braid is certainly one that will stay with you for a long time.
http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/853/853517/braid-20080220010603377_640w.jpg
Reason to love Braid #2: The Gameplay
Now I've prattled on for a long time about the story but said nothing about the game itself. Like the story, on the surface Braid is deceptively simple. You walk left and right, you climb ladders, and you jump. But in addition to this, you can also rewind time. It's this feature which makes for Braid's immensely satisfying puzzles. In world 2 (that's the one you start at), rewinding time is not really necessary, it's just a way to cheat death as you progress through the level, but each world after that throws a new twist on this power which you need to master to collect all the jigsaw pieces. World 3 introduces objects and enemies which are not affected by your time reversal, resulting in some rather clever puzzles which you can spend ages working on, only to realise after you've solved it that the solution was actually pretty blinkin' obvious. Later worlds include an orb you can drop which has a black hole-like affect and slows time around it to a crawl. This is necessary to get platforms to slow so you can cross chasms and so forth. Another includes a shadow version of yourself, so when you rewind time and then start it again, this shadow you will go and act out everything you just did before the rewind. Another world remains completely stationary, enemies and everything, while you're standing still, but as you walk to the right everything starts moving like normal and when you walk left everything starts to go backwards.
http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/853/853517/braid-20080220010600877_640w.jpg
Reason to love Braid #3: The Graphical Style
The first thing you'll probably notice about Braid from the screenshots are the graphics. You play as a man named Tim who, as you can see, is probably one of the most unusual videogame heroes you will ever play as, with his floppy red hair, suit and tie. The enemies in the game, while not having much variation (not much is needed, since the game is not about them- they are more of a puzzle-solving device) are interesting and just slightly off-looking, so like and one-legged midget, you feel uneasy looking at them but you can't seem to stop. The backgrounds are beautiful and exude an almost oil-painting quality, and it never gets boring to look at.
Reason to love Braid #4: The Music
The sound, too, is excellent, and while Tim himself makes very little noise (apart from jumping) and the enemies are pretty quiet, the soundtrack to the game is perfect. The soundtrack is made up from actual licenced tracks rather than music composed from the game, which can usually be hit-or-miss, but in Braid a lot of the tracks just sound like they belong there. World 2 (the one you start at, remember?) has a very nice folky instrumental piece (which has now found it's way onto my ipod) and the in the worlds after that, the tempo changes to become darker and more brooding, as the story itself does. The entire soundtrack seems to exude an aura of melancholy over the entire game, and this along with the graphics and the story, make it far more immersive than a hundred next-gen FPS's.
To summarise, Braid is an excellent game which deserves to be played by anyone wanting to play something a bit different, anyone who appreciates a truely artistic game and anyone looking for a good mental challenge.
Positives:
+ Brilliant Puzzles
+ Atmospheric
+ Makes you think
+ Artistic
Negatives:
- Short
- Little replay value...
... unless you opt to do the time trial challenges, which are fiendishly difficult to do, or find all the hidden stars, which is impossible without the internet's help, and even then is very hard.