So here we are. It took 3 months from idea to now but we have it, the first Sprite Club review!
From December till February we all played Braid. It was supposed to be till January but hey we got there eventually. The method we decided on was for everyone to write their own review of however long they liked and to score the game out of 10. We’d then average out the scores and give it a final Sprite Club score.
So here be the reviews
I’d been interested to play this game for a while. Dan had mentioned it a few times and I’d also noticed it mentioned on Charlie Brooker’s Gameswipe earlier in the year. So I went into the game knowing it had some interesting ideas and was quite popular for it’s innovation.
Braid reminded a lot of Portal. Built on a new idea which makes you think about it’s genre in a new way. This is very impressive for a game to accomplish as it’s quite easy to stick with what works in a playability context. The puzzles were genuinely challenging, forcing you to change your train of thought to solve them and I felt great satisfaction from completing them. I had to cheat on a couple of the puzzles as they completely blindsided me.
Whilst the visual style was quite nice I don’t think it really matched what the game was trying to do. The watercolours with the sprites just didn’t go together and when combined with the game itself none of it felt right to me. It seemed quite jumbled when you consider the music as well. I compared Braid to Portal earlier and as they both strongly idea driven games. The difference Portal really benefited from having many minds working on it which gives it depth and consistency whereas Braid lacks this somewhat.
I feel Braid is a great idea, but thats all it is. It’s an idea with other bits bolted on.
6.5/10
So if i pull the lever drop the platform go down pull the other lever head back up drop the ring pull the lever and run down avoiding the slowed down fireballs and oh fuck fuck oh and fireballs down slowed the avoiding down run and lever the pull ring the drop the ring in the right place and here we go again.
I should say, I had played and completed Braid before, so it was sort of apt, to revisit and rewind to a game that is all about shifts in time. It also gave me a chance to experience the puzzles and level layout with a more detached aye. There was a lot less “what, What, WHAT? How the fu…wha….(continues for about an hour) …What the fu….ooooOOOOOOOOHHHHHHH” and more “Oh i don’t remember this one, hmmm, what the fu…oooOOOHHHHH, oh that is well designed,now i remember, huh, well done”.
Braid was obviously a love affair, from gorgeous subtle backgrounds that evoke constable, to Irish folk that through the time distortions of the game take on a drunk and twisted, almost frightening tone.
It also loves it’s gaming being obviously in thrall to Mario and the classic platformers of yore. The crucial difference being that in Mario you couldn’t rewind over and over again every time you died.
It is in this time-shifting that the game becomes a unique and truly original affair, forcing the gamer to think in ways that most other games can’t reach, with the possible exception of Portal. As Braid progresses subtle twists and extra shifting is introduced at just the right pace to engage without firmly slamming the impossible door shut. This is not to say that some puzzles take hours, if not days to crack. I have to hold my hands up and say the “yes, Braid was a game i had to get help with, on two puzzles”. Once cracked though, you are generally left with a feeling of , huh well done, you got me, that was really clever, maybe tooo clever.
Too clever. An insult usually thrown at the geek by the bully, or the Spike Lee film by Paul Ross, but in this case Braid is just too clever, and it knows it. You can almost imagine the scene, at 4 in the morning when a particularly fiendish puzzle is set, “Oh that’s perfect, they’ll never get that, mwahahahahHAAAA”.
It’s also up it’s own time phased arse. Surely everyone else gave up reading the snippets of pretension that lay in the books in between levels? The stench of self indulgence and smugness hung throughout. leading up to the ending, congratulatory and snubbish in equal parts. A big hug and an even bigger “fuck you”.
Did i enjoy it? Was my runner up to Fallout 3 for game of the year when it came out. And after revisiting it, my opinion has only improved. For all it’s annoyances, contrivances and smugness it is a truly original and engaging creation that instilled something anew into the platform puzzler.
9/10
I can sum Braid up in two words.
The frustration does of course mean that it is incredibly rewarding when you finally work out how to do a level, but I’m not entirely convinced that the payoff is always worth the frequent temptation to throw the computer out of the window. I don’t really understand the relevance of the story but then I never did get to the end so maybe it makes more sense the further you get through.
The whole being able to rewind if you get killed is a great concept, and the fluidity of time and motion varying with each level stops it from getting repetitive. I like the style and artwork but can’t comment on the music as I only ever played it with the sound off. It’s a good enough game that having played the first few levels on the demo I was really keen to buy the full version. Maybe I’ll eventually complete it, some time around 2015.
Struggled for a while trying to decide what score to give. In so many ways it should be a 9, but in the end the aggravation with certain levels was just too much – it almost took it down to a 7, but the fact that you don’t have to complete every single level in a world before unlocking the next one rescued it up to a final well-deserved
8/10
Really got mixed opinions on this one! Braid for once uses the rewinding time ability as an interesting core gameplay mechanic rather than just saving you from your own lameness (PoP). The puzzles are difficult and give you a great feeling once overcome but the learning curve is very steep and by the time you’ve properly grasped a mechanic you stop using it. Games like Portal slowly introduce you to the concepts and teach you to think laterally, Braid chucks them at you and sits their gloating when you’re too stupid to complete the puzzle.
The art style really is beautiful with a wonderful hand painted effect and the music compliments the visuals and the gameplay, hauntingly beautiful yet nightmarish when you are failing to solve a puzzle and continuously reversing time.
For the vast majority of the game the story is pretentious wank and the mechanism used to convey it is far to dull for you to bother to take it in, but if you manage to get to the final/first world (I admit I cheated for 2 puzzle pieces in order to get there) the final reveal makes up for the previous hard slog. The final levels are brilliantly designed and executed and manage to convey the story in an interesting and engaging way. Shame it couldn’t all have been like that.
In summation; clever if irritating gameplay, beautiful presentation, stupid story but made up by a wonderful ending.
7.5/10
The first thing you notice when you play Braid is the the way it looks. The backdrops and design are stunning, the backgrounds look like some beautiful watercolour painting from the 17th century. Then you notice the character design, it’s dull and uninspired the main character is a man in a suit. You would have thought they could have thought of something better. The main enemies you encounter are balls of hay with eyes and legs, they actually cross the border to being downright ugly.
None of this matters though, the important thing with 2d platformers is how it plays. The game play in this is truly interesting: You can rewind and fast forward time whenever you want. With this time manipulation function you soon realise that it is not a platformer at all but a puzzle game. Some of the puzzles are mind bending brilliant. Often a puzzle can have you flummoxed for ages but when the penny drops it makes a very loud noise on the floor. The combination of relief and achievement is wonderful.
Saying this though my X Box died and the quickly procured replacement couldn’t load the save files from my hard disk. I couldn’t really feel any compulsion to start again. Which is a damning indictment of any game.
Wonderful in flashes but ultimately lacking replay value for me
6/10
So there you go, we all gave it a go and have come up with our first Sprite Club review.
Braid – 7.4/10
