Braid is finally out on XBLA today, and, what with it being beautiful, intelligent, and 400 MS Points more expensive than gamers might be used to, I'm a little worried not as many people will be playing the game as it deserves. A proper Destructoid review is forthcoming, but with Bionic Commando Rearmed coming out next week, I feel like more immediate measures need to be taken at this point.
It is with this in mind that I have crafted the following Top Eight list. Our review will be far more indepth and include commentary from Jim Sterling and Chad Concelmo, but this should hopefully suffice for now.
If you're on the fence about Braid, or if you've steadfastly decided against it because you refuse to pay more than 800 Microsoft Points for any Arcade title, then you should probably be aware of the following eight things, viewable after the jump, which might do something to change your mind.
8. If you're American, you're only paying an extra $5 for a game which is worth at least $30 more
The MS Point conversion is different if you live outside America, but even so: Braid is full of enough new ideas and clever game design to warrant a much, much larger price tag than it currently has.
It is, of course, worth complaining about that MS is basically extorting their audience of as much money as humanly possible while reducing the developer royalties to half what they used to be, but the simple fact remains: Braid is more than worth its current asking price. Period.
Hell, people were willing to throw five bucks at this, yet they refuse to put that money toward the most imaginative XBLA game ever just because they're not used to doing so? It doesn't make sense.
7. It does more with time manipulation than you've ever experienced in a mainstream game before.
I've often heard, from people who have not yet played the game, that Braid isn't that interesting because it "rips off" the rewind mechanic from Blinx or Prince of Persia: Sands of Time.
This is like comparing a lap dance to an eight-hour orgy.
In Blinx and Sands of Time, the rewind is limited and almost never interacts with the core gameplay in a meaningful way: you could take out the rewind from Sands of Time almost entirely and it'd still be the same game, because it only exists as a cute way of allowing the player to undo their mistakes (until your sand runs out, anyway).
In Braid, the rewind and the time manipulation are the core gameplay. You cannot possibly play through a single level without the rewind, and the rewind is totally unlimited. The core mechanics revolve entirely around the time manipulation, making for a much deeper, focused, and entertaining gameplay experience than the games it "ripped off."
6. You'll love it even if you find artgames pretentious
If you're the type who thought Passage was boring and condescending, if the mere utterance of the phrase "artgame" induces nausea, then you might be understandably skeptical about Braid, what with its heavy symbolism and dense themes.
You needn't worry, however. While there is indeed a wealth of metaphors and subtext and all those things which one might say "artgames" are known for, Braid never rubs your nose in any of it. Though the final level is a damn near perfect synthesis of metaphor and gameplay, the rest of the title's metaphorical underpinnings are subtle enough (frequently delivered through a few paragraphs of text written in books you can literally sprint past without reading) that if you just want to play with the awesomely imaginative time mechanics without scratching your head over what the rewind mechanic symbolizes, you most definitely can.
5. If you do love artgames, you'll be in heaven
Though Braid is definitely much more esoteric than the aforementioned Passage, it's filled to the brim with visual and mechanical symbolism. The first time I played through the final level, my jaw dropped, and I'm still wrapping my head around some of the philosophical concepts the game posits throughout its six worlds.
You'll still be thinking about Braid long, long after you complete it, and every new playthrough will unveil a new idea or metaphor you'd completely missed the first time around.
Additionally, artgames like Passage or The Marriage typically only last minutes, due to the simplicity of their theme or gameplay. Braid is just as full of ideas as those other titles, but manages to sustain itself over an experience hundreds of times longer than what those shorter artgames offer. This has never been done before -- we've never before had an artgame of this length or depth.
Braid is the single most artistically dense game ever relased on a major platform.
4. It's like Portal
Not in terms of actual mechanics -- Braid is about temporal manipulation, not spatial -- but in terms of how it subtly and brilliantly acclimates the player to worlds of incredible mechanic complexity.
You know how, when we all first saw the trailers for Portal, a significant amount of the gaming community thought, "There's no way I'm going to be able to understand how those physics work -- just watching the trailer made my head hurt." And yet, only an hour or so after picking the game up, and after some wonderfully mind-expanding puzzles, players were propelling themselves around the world with remarkably dexterity.
Braid is the same way. The parallel universe world seems so confounding at first, but after a little bit of work, the rules of the world will suddenly click and everything will make beautiful, beautiful sense. The worlds, which seem literally impossible to understand at first, will become familiar to you almost without your realizing it.
This isn't to say the game is easy, however, since:
3. Every single level offers something new
From level to level and world to world, Braid is completely devoid of filler. Each puzzle uses the time manipulation in a way wholly different than anything the player has borne witness to before.
By the time you've completely mastered how to use the sparkly-green rewind immunity to jump across a series of moving platforms, you're suddenly asked to use that same mechanic in a door-opening puzzle. Then, in a goddamned boss fight. Jonathan Blow milks each of his time manipulation mechanics to the point where at the end of each world, you'll have experienced at least ten different angles on a single idea, each drastically different than the others.
This lack of filler might lead some to complain that the game is "too short," but if you're playing the game the way it's meant to be played -- which is to say, without a walkthrough -- you'll be spending at least much time with it as you did Portal, and for less cash.
And besides, wouldn't you take four to six hours of consistently imaginative, mind-expanding gameplay over fifteen to twenty of repetitive filler?
2. It's goddamn beautiful on an HDTV. Or period.
David Hellman's art, when combined with the music, is simply breathtaking. You can't really understand how great it looks without seeing it in motion, but Jesus. I've been replaying my preview build on my PC for the last three months, drinking in all the subtleties of the artwork, and yet I'm still impressed by how good it looks on a high-def television.
1. There has never been another game like Braid
I realize that sounds like overstatement, but I mean it wholeheartedly. Never, in the goddamned history of videogaming, has there been another game like Braid. No game has sought to combine six different worlds of such immersive, brilliantly realized time manipulation with an incredibly artistic, epic-yet-personal tale of a man struggling to find his princess.
It combines emotion and ideas with mind-bending gameplay. It messes with time in ways simultaneously alien and totally plausible. It's the longest, deepest artgame ever made.
I can only speak for myself, but I honestly believe it is the single best game on Xbox Live Arcade, and also one of the best games I've ever played.
"Must buy" doesn't even begin to cover it.
Contest:
4:04 PM on 08.06.2008
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Also, I still don't know. After all the hoo-hah in the last week from Destructoid about how "outrageously expensive" this game is I got turned off. I am a little skeptical about the sudden about-face.
However, I will give the demo a try.
If they developer feels like the only way for him to make profit is to raise the price from an already accepted norm, then he lost the $10 that I was saving for this game.
Any after-thought of just saving those points for Rock Band DLC has been cleared away by this article. I look forward to checking it out.
I'm sure Luc is reading this post and turning in his cardboard box (kidding Luc).
1. Heretic scares me.
3 MORE HOURS!!!
I never agreed with the sentiment that it was too expensive. Since the beginning, I (and other editors) have said that it's shitty MS is raising prices and lowering royalties often without creator consent, but that the game itself is more than worth the money.
Arttemis:
Firstly, Microsoft raises the prices on these games. The developer, regardless of how they feel about the price hikes, has absolutely NO say as far as the final price point.
And in regards to your comment about rampant price inflation, in what exact way is $15 unreasonable for a four to six hour game chock full of incredibly new ideas and artistry? You pay eight bucks for a one-time movie ticket which lasts less than half the time and probably has a third of the intellectual interest. How is $15 for a game anywhere NEAR unreasonable in this case?
That said, Braid looks fantastic and I can't wait to play it. Looks like this one does everything Eternity's Child couldn't. Is it coming to PC at all? Steam?
I hope they make more good games. (I'm talking about everybody.)
also, dugg
I wholeheartedly disagree with what others have said about there being no replay value.
Even ignoring that the puzzles are just plain FUN to go through even after you've solved them once, there's so much depth to the visual art, and to the symbolism and the story, that you simply cannot get it all in one playthrough.
While it may sound like an exaggeration, I guarantee you that it isn't when I say I have literally replayed Braid more times than I have ever replayed any other game I own. For the art, for the gameplay, for the story. It DOES have significant replay value, especially if you like to look for meaning in your games.
And like I said, the price point isn't THAT much higher, right? Especially considering the aforementioned replay value?
coonskin05:
As said above, I disagree about the lack of replay value and I was surprised you didn't want to solve every single puzzle. They are, after all, the meat of the gameplay -- to skip a puzzle is to deprive yourself of an awful lot of mind-bending stuff. As Jon says on the website, the game is about the journey, not just about rushing to the end. The individual puzzle pieces are a part of that journey.
Don't get me wrong, I certainly want to. It's just that, as it was my first run through the game, and I was sleep-deprived, I just couldn't get my head around some of them. I definitely will be going back to figure them all out, however long it takes.
If we're going on this tangent, the last movie I saw was Iron Man at Matinee prices (with student discount). Before that, Rambo... before that, LotR. I don't go to theaters often.
Either way, comparing games to overpriced movies isn't going to convince me that games that finally merit their price should be raised to a higher level.
Both the developer and publisher are bound to increase sales with a lower price point. Among those sales would be mine.
Considering its elevated price, its lack of longevity and replayability are all the more prevalent in my mind when I think about Braid, but again, the price is a complete deterrent.
Until then, it looks like I'm stuck sucking dick for tacos at Jack in the Box.
Trust me: when you get to that part of the game, it could not possibly function LESS than the way Donkey Kong does.
Considering how I'm a consumer obliging companies with my game purchases (that I don't need in any shape or form), I'm always going to exercise restraint in favor of me saving money.
Don't delude yourself by thinking people aren't more pissed off at oil companies and their openly-admitted artificial inflation of gas prices.
That's fair. What was the last game you bought?
I might have to pick this game up now.. but if I start fapping uncontrollably to Haggar porn I am going to come after you REV.
You know, I get the feeling those referential things like that and other Mario allusions are going to irk me a little.
I'm sold on buying the game though, from the point where I spent about 3 minutes trying to time that first really hard puzzle piece using the rewind (the one above the first really long pit.
After realizing how streamlined the "ok try it again" loop was, I was pretty impressed.
I'll definitely buy this when I get the points to do so.
Aside from that, I just picked up DMC4 (PS3) used on ebay for $29 a couple weeks ago.
Also, I got PixelJunk Monsters (on sale $5) just last week.
@Heretic - I use public transportation more than half the time...
If prices of digital games would drop reasonably over time like their disc counterparts, then hell yeah! I'd wait for their prices to drop before buying them, just like I've done for the majority of the games I own.
Also, you won't catch me buying Penny Arcade's games (at that price) or map/mission packs unless they're severely lowered in price or free.
C WAT I DID THUR?! cause I don't...
"MS is basically extorting their audience of as much money as humanly possible while reducing the developer royalties to half what they used to be"
The above quote is my exact problem with the pricing of this game. I don't think the gameplay provided by Braid isn't "worth it," but I refuse to support a Microsoft price structure that harms both developers and consumers.
I will not be buying Braid on Xbox Live, despite my enthusiasm for the title. I will wait for an eventual PC release and hope that more of my money goes to Mr. Blow.
It's not the price its the reason "FOR" the price. Everyone praised the game before it came out. So MS decided lets milk them for more money they really want this game. It's extortion and that's my problem with it whether it's worth 15 bucks or 30 bucks."
the value or price of something is whatever people will pay for it. the game received good buzz which likely increased the demand which therefore increased the price people will pay for it. that's called capitalism.
you feel extorted? microsoft threatened you and forced you buy it? if that's true, then i would contact an attorney. microsoft has deep pockets.
first, thanks for the response. as to it not having any replay value, i just meant that to ME it didn't look like i'd want to go and replay puzzles i've already done. i mean they're puzzles that i've solved - why would i want to solve them again (unless there was a reward for "fastest time solved" or something like that)?
as for the "high" price point, it's just a matter of principle. i believe XBLA games should cost $5 for the ports, $10 for the originals, and $15 for the ones that have HUGE production value (Penny Arcade) or replay value (Castle Crashers). Braid would fall in the $10 category.