Okay, Braid. I mean, Braid. I mean, damn.
I suppose it’s time for a revelation: the only thing I’m any good at critiquing effectively is film. For some reason, I just can’t get under the skin of literature, art or music. Those, I fail at, and fail miserably. The best I could do, I suppose, would be along the lines of a book report such as those completed and handed in by primary school pupils. It would be higher-quality than those, I hope, with the kind of insight a child of eleven would miss but an well-read man of eighteen would notice. However, the two would be worth about the same when it came down to how much they were worth. As I’ve made as clear as necessary, a review needs to spark some debate, needs to teach the audience something they would not necessarily see otherwise. A though I had not stumbled across when actually writing my Critiquing essays was this: A reader should find cause to return to a review after they have seen the object in question. It should raise points and then implicitly invite the audience’s opinion on the points raised. It’s practically a duty. Otherwise, where is the point of keeping the review after you have seen the film? And something I’ve noticed when it comes to the best reviews is that they become intrinsically linked to the film. I cannot think of Revenge of the Sith or Sex and the City without bringing to mind Anthony Lane’s thoughts on the subject, and nor can I remember Mass Effect without Edge Magazine’s brilliant dissection of why it wasn’t quite perfect.
Anyway. A final thought on reviewing before I actually get down to a review. Well, not strictly a review, more a simple discussion, a brief analysis on an incomplete subject. There are two reasons for this: one, the game in question, Braid, I have not yet completed and am not likely to anytime soon, given the wonderful difficulty of the game. Two, anyone who claims to be able to sum up Braid, with all its dimensions and complexities hiding behind a veil of deceptive simplicity, is a fool. Braid cannot be encapsulated so easily.
By way of introduction, Braid is a 2D platform/puzzle game (emphasis on the ‘puzzle’ there, as the platforming element is so deliberately simple that anybody and their grandparents could complete that aspect) released on the Xbox 360 Marketplace to universal acclaim and not high enough sales figures. Gaming sites such as Penny Arcade and Zero Punctuation have berated the general public enough on the subject, and Braid has turned into something of a slow boiler: a game whose sales figures never top the board but perennially stays on there, its reputation keeping it afloat. Metacritic has decided it is in the top ten 360 games yet released and its creator is likely to give a keynote address on how to make short cheap games good at next year’s Game Developer’s Conference. Not bad for a game which cost $180,000 (as compared to Metal Gear Solid 4’s $20,000,000-odd) and had a development team who could share a single bed (hypothetically; I’m not saying they did). Braid, in short, is a game worthy of the attention of just about anyone who believes in gaming as an art form in its infancy, and I’m so ‘with’ that movement I may as well be its drummer boy. Braid, alongside Ico, Shadow of the Colossus and Portal, is one of the most compelling examples of recent years that gaming can be more than a mere skills-challenging diversion and instead be something which gets under your skin and makes you think differently. After all, it’s you doing things. It shouldn’t be an impossible goal for a game to cause you to become emotionally vested. While this may not be Braid’s aim – the story, fascinatingly and cynically philosophical as it is, is entirely separate from the gameplay – it doesn’t stop the attachment being there.
Braid takes time-manipulation mechanics – its ‘thing’; every game must have a ‘thing’ beyond the obligatories – and, ironically, simplifies them. Prince of Persia only did half the job, if this is to be counted. It’s strength is that every puzzle, nearly all of them bordering on undoable given the amount of lateral thinking not merely required but demanded with a gauntleted fist slammed down upon the table, can be solved with the powers you have at the start. Braid is not progressive, but it teaches the player to be, as harder puzzles are thrown into the mix with extra complications added at every turn. Still, you use the same powers you have always had to progress, which displays a level design of such imagination it nearly tops Super Mario Galaxy, a game whose levels I believed impassable. You are the one who advances, not your character. You are the one who learns to think through the game’s barriers, to align your thoughts and read it in a way you never would have expected necessary, toddling through the first few stages. The graphics are handpainted - handpainted - and instantly place themselves next to Team Fortress 2 and as-yet-unreleased Korean MMO Love in challenging for the title of Most Beautiful Game Ever Released, and the score is simply perfect. There isn’t a better word for it. For a game about a man running along rewinding time and collecting puzzle pieces, a lot depends on the score, and Braid has, several times, almost made me tear up. Which isn’t something I’m used to doing. This game is art, and anyone who insists on denying that simply hasn’t played it. I can tell you that for a certainty.
Once I’ve completed the game (and am a little more awake) I plan to take the story and its presentation apart and see how it works as an example of a video game narrative. It’s more intelligent than your average game story, and at this early stage (I’ve only read through about half of it) it seems oddly unnerving, as though you know you’ll be tripped up before the end. Braid is too smart to be a simple ’save-the-princess’ escapade. There’s something at work, and given I have it on good authority that Braid’s ending is revelatory, I have something to look forward to.
