You are now watching: Episode 2: Braid

Our second episode where we sit down and give the infamous game Braid a run through the TLC gauntlet. As you can see we tried a bit of a different format for this one, and yours truly wasn’t involved since I had already completely pwn3d the game before this session. Be sure to check out our short review and Flogging a Dead Horse. Also let us know how you find the new theme!

Jeza’s Take

I sat down with Tim and Joel to play Braid for the first time. Let me tell you I knew very little about the game except it was a puzzle platformer with time control. Tim takes the reins and starts our journey. First impression in this is a very nice looking game. The art is cool but for some reason doesn’t follow the rules of convention. The game play is simple 2d side scroller action with the twist of time manipulation.The puzzles were quite reasonable to start off, with the added bonus of the jigsaw level made for a change up, but as some of the pieces became increasing more difficult to obtain, and Tim continued to die I sort of lost interest. Maybe it was because I wasn’t driving. One thing that did really annoy me was the constant having to read the books to get the story. Would it kill you to have the story in one book instead of the character having to continually read the next book? Despite this misgiving, Braid is a solid game and worth the time investment.

Tim’s Take

I’d like to say Braid is just impossible or unnecessarily frustrating, but I think the real truth, the harsh kernel of the matter, is that I just plain fucking suck at anything involving timing or puzzle solving. It is, as I mentioned, a struggle for me to work doorknobs on a daily basis, so asking me to position my beautifully-rendered little man in the right position while navigating backwards through the flow of time AND taking into account objects which hurtle incessantly forwards through time at the same… well, time, is basically a recipe for enough swear-words to embarrass even Jeza’s horrendous floozy of a mother. Perhaps, unlike me, you are possessed of enough co-ordination to handle simple taks, and you will find much more success in the freakishly temporal world of Braid. In any case, at the price of $15 it would be a crime to pass up this beautiful and innovative game. And we know what happens to criminals.