Braid: Over-Blown
Aug 14, 2008 | Filed under Games
Over the past two weeks, the gaming press has assaulted me with stories about a downloadable Xbox Live game called Braid. Joystiq and Penny Arcade in particular have been blaring the “OMG BEST GAME EVAR!!1!” trumpets (to paraphrase), but apparently they aren’t alone. The game is a Super Mario Brothers-styled platformer with time-controlling elements similar to Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, with a unique narrative and hand-painted backdrops and design that’s unlike anything that I’ve ever seen in a game before. Despite the originality of the game, I just don’t get the hype.
Portal this ain't.
Part of the problem is that I’m sick of hearing about the game’s designer, Jonathan Blow. There are very few rock stars in the video game development community because of the massive amount of work that gets put into most games. The few designers who actually become household names — video game-playing households, anyway — earned their prestige through innovation or a singular creative vision that they imprint on all their games. Shigeru Miyamoto, Will Wright, Tim Schafer, that Metal Gear Solid guy — those guys are “names” because they each put a unique stamp on their creations (question: if those guys are “rock stars”, does that make John Romero the “Brett Michaels” of video games?).
From the beginning, any mention of Braid in the gaming press was “Jonathan Blow’s Braid,” which confuses me since this is his first game, and I’d never heard of him before. Since he doesn’t have a studio (like, say, Tim Schafer’s Doublefine), this sort of makes sense, but he gets a lot of press. He may be exceptionally good at self-promotion (he apparently has a habit of turning up in forums where his game is discussed), or it may be that the game press is giving him an extra push because he used to be one of their own, according to Wikipedia.
The other, much more important problem I have with the Braid hype, is that the game isn’t fun.
To be completely fair, I only downloaded the demo, and haven’t played the full game.. But the demo pretty much gives me an idea of what to expect from the game, and I’m not impressed (I guess you could say I wasn’t…”Blown-away”…snicker). I was surprised, actually, since it shares quite a bit of DNA with Portal (platform-puzzle hybrid, unique narrative, independent roots, short length), and Portal is easily one of my favorite games of all time.
Braid lacks the immediacy of a typical platformer, putting the emphasis on puzzle-solving, which has never really been my bag. I prefer my platformers New Super Mario Brothers style - fast and twitchy. Braid takes a more lethargic pace, and there’s no sense of danger since death is always reversible. Now, if a game’s story is engaging enough, I can look past my genre prejudices and play it anyway, because I’m invested in the outcome. But I just can’t identify with Tim, the tie-wearing protagonist of Braid, on his search for his princess. The storytelling is most definitely unique, but it’s not engaging. So without good game mechanics, and without a storytelling hook to keep my attention, it just isn’t worth my $15.
Even though it’s not my sort of game, I’m still glad Braid exists. I’ll put my hat in with the “games are art” crowd and say that more thoughtful, intellectual game development should happen more often. That doesn’t mean I have to play it. A good analogy is to compare Braid to classical music. I can appreciate that classical music takes great talent to compose, and requires a higher level of skill than say, your average Green Day tune. But I’m not rushing out to buy up every Mozart CD I can, either.
