Game Review: Braid

Developed by Jonathan Blow of Number None, Braid is another one of those charming independent titles that has risen to fame through the Xbox Live Arcade after it's release back in 2008. It's coming a little late, but I just had to have a nosey, and find out why Braid has caused such a buzz in the community.

Braid certainly didn't cause this buzz because of it's plot. The gist of it is simple enough; you'll traverse various different worlds, trying to find the Princess who is always in another castle. It all sounds very Super Mario, which is no bad thing, but Braid seems to have deluded itself into thinking that there's much more to it than that. So much so that it will ask you to read through reams of text, all of which are pointless because they're so ambiguous and vague. This is supposed to leave the story open to interpretation, but it just comes off as pretentious.

"Could you just give me her address so this doesn't happen again?"

On the other hand, Braid truly shines with it's furiously clever gameplay. While at first it may seem like a typical platformer, again paying homage to the Super Mario series with the classic jumping-on-enemies-heads action, there is so much more to Braid than that. The true brilliance of Braid is in the time manipulation. This is hardly a stranger to games; Prince of Persia has been using time reversal throughout the last generation, but Braid applies it in such a way that it makes any other game's time manipulation mechanics look simplistic and dated by comparison.

Each world offers you a different and unique kind of time manipulation, which you'll have to use to solve puzzles and avoid dangerous obstacles, and this is where Braid is truly unique. Most games rely on movement, having you move from one place to another through or around various obstacles, but Braid requires you to start thinking of things in relation to time as well as this. This does have the annoying side effect of making Braid's difficulty curve fluctuate between fairly simple and bollocks twisting-ly hard. Some puzzles are going to be blindingly obvious while others are going to gnaw away at your mind until you've exhausted yourself performing the same trial and error ten times over and leave the game in bitter frustration. With Braid's inherent pretentiousness you can't help but get the feeling that, while you're sat there frustrated with the challenges, it's snootily mocking your inability from a far off distance. However, this does serve to make completing levels in Braid that little bit more satisfying, and you will find yourself looking back and marvelling at how bloody ingenious it all was.

Yeah, shut up now, I want to rip a hole in the spacetime continuum.

All this is wonderfully topped off with Braid's beautiful worlds and musical score. This is quite possibly the best looking Xbox Live Arcade game available, and I doubt any words I use to describe it could do it justice, unless I threw several hundred "really"s in front of it. It's just gorgeous, making the worlds in Braid absolute joy to play though. At least when it's not making you feel like a fool.

You will struggle to find a game as pretentious as this one, and for that matter you'll struggle to find one as difficult or frustrating. But despite all that, Braid is still worth a look, purely for it's unique time manipulation. A beautiful and sophisticated game, Braid is definitely one of the best titles on the Xbox Live Arcade.

9/10

Right, done, and it only took me six months to get round to it. I'm so well organised.

Master of time and space - tomdoodle16@live.co.uk