Saturday, May 2nd, 2009
Braid
So, I finally got around to playing Braid on the PC. I had noticed this little gem on the Xbox 360 through the Xbox Live Arcade, but never followed up on it after going through the trial. Well, with a little help from gamefaqs, I stomped this game in about a day and a half. It was an interesting experience.
I’d almost qualify it as melancholy. The last indie game I played was World of Goo, which made me cry and laugh in places, the sign of a really frikken GOOD game. But this Braid didn’t seem to have the emotional depth that Goo had. It started good, it built up slow, and near the end I was expecting some kind of closure, a release or a revelation of sorts. But nothing panned out. I have my own theories and ideas about what the game was about, the story it tried to convey, but the puzzle pieces don’t fit right in my head, to strain the analagous feature from the game into metaphor.
I come away from the game feeling “less than”. Like seeing bits and pieces of a really awesome movie that you’d like to watch later, but can’t remember enough of it to look it up. In terms of art, certainly stunning. And some of the puzzles had me waltzing through the fourth dimension like Donnie Darko on crack. The narrative - not so much.
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