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by Creexuls, a monster >:3 03/25/2009, 10:27pm PDT |
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Braid 2008 game of the year.
How do you go about reviewing a videogame in which the main character is named after yourself, a videogame made by someone you’ve met and had dinner with, someone you’ve watched drink Chartreuse and conversed long with about videogame design?
The title of "most worthless game reviews in the history of the human race" does not seem to be in jeopardy so far (gj tmrgrs ^_^b).
You might have heard of this concept in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, or in Blinx: The Time-Sweeper. However, you mustn’t confuse Braid with those games. Those games were, first and foremost, blockbuster-aspiring genre titles; they used time manipulation as a gimmick, a key to open the supplied lock.
You see the time reversing in Braid isn't a mechanic, it is important, it means something. *big pile of mashed potatoes*
Some players craved downloadable content, complaining that the game doesn’t explore its ability set enough. These people who see fit to complain that the game developers didn’t do enough work are often so busy that they absolutely must wear rollerskates at all times, and always abbreviate “downloadable content” as “DLC”. They probably do this because their Microsoft Word spell check filter is set to treat anything typed in all capital letters as spelled correctly.
Let's digress for no reason and clog up the review some more.
Back during our first play-through of Portal, when the game introduced the momentum mechanic, we envisioned a puzzle where you have to cross a gap by shooting two portals onto a floor far beneath and then plunging into either one of them. We felt really smart when the game actually presented us with such a puzzle-fragment.
Eiji Aonuma, producer of the Zelda games, says that any given puzzle in a Zelda game should, when solved, make the player feel as though he is “smart”. In other words, it should fool the player into thinking he’s outsmarted the game. Jonathon Blow, Game Designer, comes from a different and wholly more respectful place when it comes to puzzle-plotting
OOOOOOOO. The same could be said of the "puzzles" in Mechwarrior 4. Why doesn't tim "blow" go on about that for a paragraph or two? I guess because he's not friends with them. I guess that's where the conflict of interest kicks in to overdrive/overdrift and turns into a dinosaur. and drinks an energy drink or canned coffee.
Portal encourages us to think of our own situations. It’s a carefree little game. Braid, however, with its much simpler-to-state (”you can rewind time”), harder-to-present concept, faces a darker path. In Portal, the game progression’s “story arc” was icing on the cake; in Braid, due to the hard-science-like nature of the inner workings of the level design, the “plot” is an absolute necessity.
Portal: Almost important, but not enough like Braid, which is very important. Also, Braid is the underdog and is more artistic because your simplistic minds preemptively aren't capable of appreciating it, because it's just 2D, and 2D games have never sold since 1998. Ignore all the stuff about Xbox Live Arcade.
Also, Portal is 3D and “next-gen”, and Braid is 2D with hand-drawn backgrounds. 3D sells itself. In order for 2D to sell, it has to be “sophisticated”. We’ve been over this before. (Actually, maybe we haven’t.)
Also it is very literary.
The end of the game sees the entire experience tumbling into a freak-out crescendo that’ll probably remind you of Nabokov
YOU'RE TELLIN ME
Anyone can enjoy Braid as a game. “I’m not good at videogames” or “I’ve never played a videogame” is not an excuse for not playing Braid. (It’s a much more valid excuse, however, for not playing Portal: some people just can’t deal with using the right analog stick to look.)
There is no reason to not like Braid, ever, WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU. Also, everyone plays Portal on a console, and even some people who do are more used to playing them wrong (games that don't use the right stick to look?).
As a piece of work, as a “work of significance”, the very feeling of Braid’s literesque arc is feelable from the very start
So......... is Braid a game that matters? I dunno hopefully we find out in this review soon. Also, is this old games journalism? I'm still not sure yet, better keep reading.
ou need only have soaked in the atmosphere of the title screen, the way the player character disappears into the shadows outside the house, the flicking sound of the lights coming on in the first room, and the awed silence of the clouds before World 2 before acquiring more than enough understanding of what the game is about.
There’s a high probability that the “revelations” in the epilogue are randomly generated and intended solely to blur the “facts” of the story or distract the player from any kind of definite “understanding”
Welp I guess we finally found out that Braid is a game that matters. Also he goes on to write about 50 trillion words on the first level being named "world 2," but that the final world must be world 1 to wrap things up etc. Also, did anyone else notice that timgorsogsrs uses way too many commas incorrectly? Someone get this newb an editor.
Let's wrap up with this.
From Braid, you get what you give, until you give too much, and then everything falls apart and you feel horrible. It’s a fresh catharsis in the world of bone-dry mass-produced game development, and much as the press are quick to scream “genius” or the naysayers are quick to scream “pretentious” (seriously, let’s all sit down and try to finally learn what that word means, some time), Braid is really neither.
"Braid isn't pretentious," said Tim Rogers. Anyone see anything wrong with this picture? ANYONE AT ALL? *lone black kid raises his hand* |
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tim "cuntflaps" rogers cordially invites you to shove $5 up your stupid asses. by Creexuls, a monster >:3 03/25/2009, 10:27pm PDT 
anyone who mentions drinking wine in their review needs to stop writing NT by Weyoun Voidbringer 03/25/2009, 10:57pm PDT 
Can wine reviewers be exempted? NT by Wine & Spirits Magazine 03/25/2009, 10:59pm PDT 
No. 8( NT by Creexuls, a monster >:3 03/25/2009, 11:34pm PDT 
shrimp and white wine NT by Entropy Stew 03/26/2009, 12:11am PDT 
Chartreuse != wine NT by The more you know (ABOUT BOOZE!) 03/26/2009, 8:13am PDT 
It is something more pretentious? NT by Creexuls, a monster >:3 03/26/2009, 8:18am PDT 
This is my favorite part of your review of his review by Lizard_King 03/27/2009, 8:11pm PDT 
Good ole Creexul NT by Ice Cream Jonsey 03/27/2009, 8:17pm PDT 
This was excellent btw and the new How I Introduce People To Creex. NT by Zsenitan 03/28/2009, 12:34pm PDT 
but is it art? by tim rogers james frey, the mashup 03/29/2009, 2:00pm PDT 
It is so art it can reduce a man to tears just by having nothing. NT by Creexuls, a monster >:3 03/29/2009, 2:57pm PDT 
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