The reason I can’t like Braid…

Very few games deserve the “masterpiece” epithet. I haven’t played Braid so I can’t really talk about it but games like it, Pixeljunk, Dyson and any number of indie games which are hailed for their gameplay suggest that mainstream games do not concentrate on actual innovation (after all, why did everyone “love” Mirror’s Edge? Answer: it was a shock of innovation from EA).

No real surprise I suppose but there was a time when games were not successful unless they had genuine gameplay innovation. Now I’m not complaining when Ubisoft churn our something like PoP: SoT but the standard fair from practically every developer completely ignores innovation in favour of trying to catch some mythic hype monster with enough enjoyement to stave off damaging reviews.

Okay I’ve said nothing new here. I think my point is, at some stage computer games and their creation process will hopefully evolve more towards the film making process: the product of one person’s creativity with a large team dedicated to making that vision a reality. Game concept design by a ‘team’ destroys the creative process. You find a Kubrick, Cameron, Nolan, Squid or Burton and you trust to their genius. Every time you multiply the creative source, you divide the creative output.

That is why indie games are innovative and large dev games are largely devoid of it and why game devs need me. Possible the Hippy, too.

LMFAO! Harry Potter and Elijah Wood…

Braid = W@nk……thats all I’m saying.

wow.

You’re a moron.

P.s. But not as big a moron as me who doesn’t realise that the owner of this website has the power of vito and can make me look like a massive cock by simply adding a P.s. if he feels like it.

and mario jumps on giant… what the fuck are they? no fucking game makes any god damn sense, unless it’s one of those realistic take-damage racing games… which are still full of shit. hardly a reason for criticism.

I like to suck penis

IMHO if you think this game sucks just because hes looking gay (yeah.. he DOES look gay but if YOU wouldnt be gay you would only see how awesome this game is) and because those FUCKING TRAILS CANT STAND AGAINST THE FUCKING SKY, then your brain finally atrophied. If you notice such small things why dont u look how bad world is and kill yourself? oh and look at yourself, you look like dwarf motherfucker without muscles and brain.

You’re a bloody genius Chris

Braid is shit. It’s a twenty year old mario clone. The progression is so shit if you couldn’t wind time back it would just be incredibly annoying, e.g. random death when jumping on enemies, randomly jumping off cliffs to your death. The puzzles are just ‘key & door’ which is a mechanic from the early eighties. The music is horrid. And worst of all, it’s completely fucking pretentious!

I’ve just played Braid for a bit, it’s absolute shit. I can’t understand why people would like this game. The character is instantly dislikeable, the graphics are crap.

I tried to see the good in Braid, I really did. At the end of the day though, it’s a Mario clone with a couple of features to try and make you think that it isn’t. Which might not be so bad if it were a GOOD Mario clone, but it fails at that too. Fail, fail, fail.

Braid is actually one of the, if not THE, most intelligent, well-constructed, and artistically-inclined games I’ve ever played.

I don’t find the text pretentious at all, and if any of you had the capacity to read between the lines and understand the concept of open-ended poetry, you would see that this is not just a story about someone chasing after the girl he erroneously left behind. It’s true meaning is up to the interpretation of the player, which is the point of good art.

The painterly graphic style is beautiful, and the music even more so. The gameplay is simple enough to not be a distraction from the main point of the game: solving unique puzzles, and the time-manipulation aspect of the game is brilliant in how much can be accomplished with relatively simple mechanics behind it all. Braid’s gameplay does take a page from Mario’s book, but this game is hardly a clone, unless you think both games consist only of jumping on goombas and crossing finish lines.

The puzzles themselves become increasingly clever as the game progresses, until you are left with no other choice than to try every out-of-the box alternative until you can finally collect them all and make it to the last level, which I won’t spoil for all of you (even though those of you like Chris who are too close-minded to understand a game that doesn’t involve elves and dwarves fucking each other in the ass would probably never make it that far), is a pretty brilliant twist on what you think you’ve been playing for the entire time.

The game leaves enough questions unanswered to make you think (that’s right, USE YOUR BRAIN), while giving you just enough to feel like you’ve accomplished something (i.e. USED YOUR BRAIN).

Oh, and about those trellises- dude, it’s a fucking video game. Get over it.
Fuck abstract art because that’s not the way the real world is, right?

P.S. Add all the fucking p.s.’s you want, I said what I wanted to say.

This is the worst review I have ever read. You made no valid arguments as to why this game was so bad, other than the trellis looked bad.

I guess a trellis standing tall and square with no support is more unrealistic than having multiple ways to manipulate time.

I wouldn’t call this a mario clone either. Mario was a platformer based around skilled jumps/timings, collecting powerups, and so forth. This is a puzzle game. And not because you collect puzzle pieces and put them together. It is a puzzle game because you need to think of different elements in time control to complete the game. It is a real thinker.

I’m just going to take a guess and say that you probably got frustrated with the complexity of the puzzles.

This game is genious and a masterpiece. I give it a 10/10 wholeheartedly, and for anyone who has not played it yet, I strongly reccommend it. Its great to see such a fresh concept in gaming.

Hmmm

The reason I can’t like braid is because it’s FUCKING gay

braid is a wonderful game………
who ever wants to comment on any games they should finish it first……
if they con’t bad comments will come like these……..

I think the guy that wrote this needs to check out this page

http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/xbox360/file/943284/53842

I’m sure you’ll probably just continue to make fun of the game, but I figured you might want to check the facts before you talk about how simple and moronic the storyline is.

It’s nice to see someone trying to offer information to others, like XG3 in the Braid Storyline FAQ i posted directly above this comment, instead of just bashing.

I loved the game, but i have to agree about one thing.

Those trellises are just awful. Couldn’t they have at least included some beautiful White Stephanotis?

OP is the biigest and most absolute idiot i’ve ever seen on the internet, and thats almost as bold a statement as the ones he makes.

OP is the biigest and most absolute idiot i’ve ever seen on the internet, and thats almost as bold a statement as the ones he makes.

dude you got so fried by being a douche about it, and comment editing. Well, I guess Braid has that effect on people, making them all nervous because they’re too brainwashed by other shitty games to actually complete it

lmaoo car salesman hahahhahaahah dude he sounds like the angry nintendo nerd.

I would agree with almost everything that you have said…

Except for the ending to the game, which screwed my mind over more than Fight Club. If you play this game, you will get little satisfaction until the end, which somehow turns the entire game into a meaningful masterpiece.

TLDR : Play the whole damn game.

“The progression is so shit if you couldn’t wind time back it would just be incredibly annoying, e.g. random death when jumping on enemies, randomly jumping off cliffs to your death.”

but – crucially – you *can* rewind time, so what is your point?

wow it must be awful to live with all that pent-up anger all of the time. to get that upset about a game is a shame. hopefully you will find help.

God braid sucks. The princess is a horrible metaphor about the *atomic bomb.* The shitty game actually is about the fucking atomic bomb.

This is an evolution in the direction that makes games suck now. Total cocksucking of a “creative” genius? Obfusicated plot and non-linear story to hide a simple premise and make it look deep? Challenging puzzles that hide the fact the gameplay is completely linear and must be completed the way the designer intended?

Just because you go in reverse doesn’t change the fact you have no freedom to step outside the line. Instead of shitty linear games that go forward this guy made a breakthrough with a shitty linear game that goes back and forward and completely binds you to the whims of the creator.

Fickle companion puzzles completely break the rules of the game world and make it an exercise in reading a programmer’s mind, not playing a game with consistent and clear rules. And it’s fucking easy if you approach it that way. The puzzles are entirely linear but apparently no one who reviewed it studied enough math to realize that a line goes two directions.

Good writing doesn’t hide or conceal. Even with an unreliable narrator good writing makes that clear. This game deliberately hides the shitty fucking plot and “vision” of the creator to make it seem meaningful when it’s as trite a topic as possible.

This guy was an english major. But he was the type who thought deep and unclear prose was genius. Carver and Hemingway proved that was retarded. Even Melville, Faulkner and Conrad are hard to read but essentially clear because they try and connect with the audience. That’s a skill whoever made Braid lacked.

I bet this game was real fun to make. It was awful to play. Give me a game like fallout 2 where I can make my own choices and the meaning arises out of how I play the game. This is the last time I buy a shitty game where the developer imposes every choice on me, makes me conform to his experience and rapes me with his creative vision.

Fallout 2 was also about the atom bomb and many times more meaningful because the player’s actions defined what happened. It sold millions more copies for the same reason.

If you didn’t find the text in ‘Braid’ pretentious, you’re the biggest fucking cunt on the planet.

I could go ahead and tell you why I do think Braid is a gem, but don’t feel like you would take anyone seriously trying to explain this.

I think you need some serious help, Chris.
Your reasons about braid are the worst. Good luck with your life.

keep up the great work on the site. I love it. Could maybe use some more updates more often, but i am sure that you have got other things things to do like we all have to do unfortunately. =) 68667

You’re an idiot. As if you’d allow trellises to affect how you feel about a game. And I assume you dislike the concept of reading or atypical games. Feel free to buy mainstream shit then.