I decided to buy Braid yesterday after watching some gameplay videos, namely the one I covered 2 days ago. For 1,200 MS Points ($15) this game is a steal, despite appearing generic in videos on the Internet I must say the quality of the high-res graphics really came through once I played it in HD. Everything animates fluidly and the “painterly” quality to the hand drawn graphics looks great. Paired with a haunting soundtrack it has top production values.
Initially the game starts off easy enough where you jump around levels Mario style and collect puzzle pieces which you use at the end of a world to piece together a jig-saw puzzle. Not too long into the game though you will find the genius puzzles integrated into the game, but to avoid spoiling the fun of finding them out for yourself I will make no mention to any of them, but trust me they are cool! I am now on the 3rd world and have really enjoyed it so far, the puzzles now have a time reversal element to them where if you move to the right, enemies and objects move normally, but as soon as you move toward the left of the screen everything reverses in time (like rewinding a movie).
Platformer fans will no doubt love the easter eggs thrown in the game making references to others in the genre. This is a no doubt buy for anyone reading this website right now, if you like traditional, beautiful hand drawn platformers with a sense of artistry and puzzles Braid is just your fix. Before you go comparing it to other time altering games, just trust me on this one….Braid does it best and like no other out there. Expect a review of the game once I have completed it.
Filed under: XBLA, Xbox 360 | Tagged: braid, braid-xbox-xbla, johnathan-blow, number-none-inc
