As the title suggests, here be spoilers if you haven't finished the XBox Live Arcade game Braid.
Best ending ever? If so, that speaks more to video games' Monty Pythonesque track record of crappy endings than to any transcendental quality of Braid. As great as the game is, it doesn't really come together in the end. The problem is that the story is both too obscure and too disconnected from the gameplay. You're never really sure what the story is about, nor how it relates (except allegorically) to what you're doing in the game. So when the rug gets pulled out from under you and you discover that Tim's actually the bad guy, it lacks the impact it could have had with a bit more connection of story and game.
Now that it's all over, I subscribe to the atomic bomb theory. But I can't say that I really care. Plenty of people are falling over themselves to praise Braid as high art. The gameplay and puzzle design deserve every accolade, but as for the story... it's unclear if the author himself really knew what the heck it was about. Which at least puts him on par with J.J. Abrams.
In summary... I recommend Braid be played, not read.
Posted by Peter at September 11, 2008 9:05 PMTotally agree. Braid had some of the coolest puzzles I've ever played. But there was little to no actual story; just a bunch of silly text that didn't make much sense. After it was all over, I looked around online to see WTF it was all about, but I lost interest really quick.
So yeah, Braid is a bad guy... ok? I guess I never thought of him as a good guy anyway... In fact, I didn't really think about Braid as a guy with a story at all. He was just an avatar to move through the fantastic puzzles.
Posted by: Jake on September 15, 2008 8:13 AMI have to agree about the flavor text jibberish. I'm still unsure if the whole disjointed cacaphony was ego masquerading as artistic liscense. Really, it seemed like they had 4 different people writing their own full version of the storyline, and then randomly picked one of their entries for each book 'drop'.
But, I think the ending is still one of the best in the electronic gaming world. I think the whole game had this reverse logic feel. I mean, a platformer where you can do one action (jump), or reverse time (all the way back to the beginning of the level, which is kinda cool by itself). But every level gave you this new kind of way the environment tweaked the mechanic.
And the ending, while I can see as a little hackneyed, was unexpected for me. Video games have always been about being the uber-mensch. Even the darker games are run such that you are the main (pro/an)-tagonist.
But, in Braid, you went through this epic quest to save the princess, besting time itself, only to end up finding out you're nothing more than a boss battle for some knight in shining armor. You are left thwarted and alone.
I dunno, I guess I liked the Kaiser Soze plot twist wrapped in an engaging puzzle game. :)
Posted by: Jay on October 8, 2008 6:49 PM