Sulphur on 15/4/2009 at 14:24
I couldn't stop playing the demo. Couldn't stop even if I wanted to. Each world throws you a new concept, and each level adds a new twist around that concept. It's insidiously brilliant game design.
I don't know about the 'pretentiousness' (the text does seem slightly over-wrought at times, but it's not like you're reading Yes lyrics), but I don't believe I've been as entranced or addicted to a game like this since Sands of Time.
snauty on 15/4/2009 at 14:32
don't kill the whale, dude.
Gaph on 16/4/2009 at 04:21
Quote Posted by Sulphur
I couldn't stop playing the demo. Couldn't stop even if I wanted to. Each world throws you a new concept, and each level adds a new twist around that concept. It's insidiously brilliant game design. I don't know about the 'pretentiousness' (the text does seem slightly over-wrought at times, but it's not like you're reading Yes lyrics), but I don't believe I've been as entranced or addicted to a game like this since Sands of Time.
I honestly don't get that. Braid is the furthest thing away from addicting for me. Nothing about rewinding time, time moving with you, ect. felt new to me. The puzzles put them to clever use but solving them wasn't especially difficult or rewarding. If I thought it lived up to it's own pervading sense of superiority, then I wouldn't think it was pretentious. It's all bark, no bite. The presentation wrote a check it's gameplay couldn't cash. Ect.
Muzman on 16/4/2009 at 12:42
This game does sound pretty fascinating from what I read, but I doubt I could get past the fact that it's a 2d platformer in 2009 and thus horrid retro-kitch.
Then there's this:
Quote Posted by Sulphur
the text does seem slightly over-wrought at times, but it's not like you're reading Yes lyrics
From what I read, this is eerily appropriate
Quote:
Move yourself
You always live your life
Never thinking of the future
Prove yourself
You are the move you make
Take your chances win or loser
See yourself
You are the steps you take
You and you - and thats the only way
Shake - shake yourself
Youre every move you make
So the story goes
Angel Dust on 16/4/2009 at 12:56
Picked it up a couple of days ago and it really is quite good. Absolutely beautiful graphics, nice music selection and fiendishly clever puzzles. The writing is certainly over wrought and more than a little self important but I don't think I'm not far enough in to completely judge that yet. The time manipulation may or may not be original but rarely has it been implemented as well as it has here. So far it has managed to keep twisting the basic gameplay with every level so it's never the same puzzle over and over. Hopefully this variation can be sustained until the end but as it is it's still easily worth the measly 25 NZ dollars I paid for it. :thumb:
Sulphur on 16/4/2009 at 20:14
Quote Posted by Muzman
From what I read, this is eerily appropriate
[much Yessage]
Augh! Yes lyrics! putitawayrightnowgoddammit :mad::mad:
Truth is, I find Yes lyrics more nonsensical than pretentious. Someone I know once described the sum total of their work as 'elevator muzak on the way down to hell'. Heh. Not like I share that opinion, though - I still like me some Starship Trooper. (snauty, I'm gonna pretend that whale song never happened :erg:)
Quote Posted by Gaph
I honestly don't get that. Braid is the furthest thing away from addicting for me. Nothing about rewinding time, time moving with you, ect. felt new to me. The puzzles put them to clever use but solving them wasn't especially difficult or rewarding. If I thought it lived up to it's own pervading sense of superiority, then I wouldn't think it was pretentious. It's all bark, no bite. The presentation wrote a check it's gameplay couldn't cash. Ect.
I approached Braid knowing almost nothing about it 'cept that it was big for some reason on XBLA. So when I fired it up, the art, the music and the gameplay hit me like a frying pan to the face.
It was good shiz, partly because I had zero expectations, and partly because it's been a good long time since I've played a game that actually tried stuff like this (the last game that I played which was even remotely similar was Psychonauts). And of course, the art and music is quite awesome.
I also don't completely agree that it exudes that "pervading sense of superiority". Yes, it does appear to be talking down to you at points, but I simply ignore the tone rather than take it all that seriously. If there's some meaning to the over-arching story, I'd rather understand it completely and
then be offended by it.
Which means I need to finish the game first. :D
About the gameplay, I like it primarily due to the purity of its mechanics. It's simply done and never overly awkward or complicated. It's never terribly difficult to figure out solutions, but neither is it terribly easy all the time either - I thought the difficulty was almost perfectly pitched in the levels I've played so far, which was why I couldn't really put the demo down for a while.
Renzatic on 16/4/2009 at 20:33
Quote Posted by Muzman
This game does sound pretty fascinating from what I read, but I doubt I could get past the fact that it's a 2d platformer in 2009 and thus horrid retro-kitch.
Are you kidding? If anything, I wish we had MORE 2D platformers around. They represent a pure form of straight up fun we don't see too often in these heavy 3D days.
Take Bionic Commando for instance. I can whip around with the grace of a ballerina trapeze artist crossed with a spider monkey, and never once get frustrated because of a wonky camera angle or feel like the game is playing itself by autotargetting some grappable surface and whipping my character around for me. I just grab a controller and start doing awesome things.
It might just be me, but I'd love to see a return to form of the old 2D games. The world would be a better place if we had more Bionic Commandos, Yoshi's Islands, Contras, Ninja Gaidens (the old NES ones), Rocket Knight Adventures, and all those other great 8-16 bit style games alongside the new 3D stuff.
Edit: And more Ghouls 'n Ghost games. Though I can't recommend them completely because they're mostly geared for masochists and people who hate themselves.
Muzman on 17/4/2009 at 00:21
Yeah, it's mostly a personal taste thing. There's plenty of people who love them. Indie developers obviously do, I suspect for simplicity and nostalgic fun.
I was never that into them, as was made abuntantly clear when Doom etc came along. There's no going back (I've tried once or twice; Interesting 2d platformer indie with interesting graphics and mechanics...still basically yuck).
(great, now I have to go and 'remember Yes' as well.)
Toxicfluff on 17/4/2009 at 22:15
Quote Posted by Muzman
Yeah, it's mostly a personal taste thing. There's plenty of people who love them. Indie developers obviously do, I suspect for simplicity and nostalgic fun.
I was never that into them, as was made abuntantly clear when Doom etc came along. There's no going back (I've tried once or twice; Interesting 2d platformer indie with interesting graphics and mechanics...still basically yuck).
(great, now
I have to go and 'remember Yes' as well.)
Hmmm... Well, I can see how 2D is an anachronism, in fact I sort of look at it that way myself. But at the same time, if I wrest myself away from the tech side of things, I love the 2D games just as much. At the end of the day, it's all a medium. You got ballads, you got electronica, you got swing songs, you got rock songs, you got rock 'n' roll songs, you got drum and bass, you got Chopin, you got glitch and all other bits and shits in between. It's all music, albeit some of it only possible through certain thought and technology availaBle at the time. But it's all music.
And I see games the same way. Yeah, I think you're on the money with retro kitsch being a bit of a shtick, but apart from teh retro (and I really think it
should be too early for this) fetishes of certain developers, what's to say a game should be 3D just because the technology's there?
I guess, in my drunken way what I'm trying to say is that I'm strongly opposed to the idea that the presentation of games should only move in one direction, a direction dictated by graphical capabilitie. A game is a game is an idea, and if it's executed well in its particular dimension, so be it. And if it isn't, well that's a fault of the developers, not the form that they chose to work in.
//Oh, and, ponderous writing aside, I think Braid is a fucking awesome little game. More with less is an achievement I can't help but admire.
Jarmam on 25/4/2009 at 01:37
Best purchase since the Orange Box.
Which rocked.
The star-chasing part of Braid is absolutely horrid, but also the only flaw that's worth pointing out.
