Xbox Live Deal of the Week: Braid

So – it just came to my attention that Xbox Live’s deal of the week is a 33% discount on BRAID for this week (that’s almost over). This is a GREAT deal.

The Xbox Live Arcade game is a real trip –if you don’t know it, it just looks like a silly little platformer. Looks, however, are very deceiving (at least in this case). In short, you wade your way through a philosophically abstract storyline while trying to “rescue the princess” (she’s in another castle). As you traverse the levels, you collect puzzle pieces – but you soon realize the game is actually a puzzle game that uses time manipulation (a really nifty rewind feature) in order to figure out how to get the pieces. Soon, you see the platforming is simply a dressing up of the actual puzzles, means to the end of collecting the pieces.

Wrapping my head around some of the early puzzles (I’m not all too far into it yet) was odd at first, and I might have been a little slow see where I was supposed to be going with it. Some of the puzzles really made me think hard, complete with talking out loud to myself, the television, and eventually resorting to ice cold beer to cool the warm throbbing in my head (this was a good thing, trust me).

The graphics are a psychedelically cool watercolor aesthetic, the music is eerily haunting, and the simplistic gameplay (re: 3 buttons. Jump, use, rewind time) is engaging. And it will make you think.

Check it out (on the cheap!) if you have an Xbox Live account before the week is up!
PC gamers, the game releases on Valve’s STEAM service soon!

+ Braid Review [Game Spot]

- Goodchild

Sphere: Related Content