One day, Jonathan Blow was probably sitting in his barely furnished house sipping on chai tea and listening to Nick Drake, when he pondered “You know, these international big wig corporations have had it too good for too long. It’s about time some of that money was sent my way.” So he pushed the most recent edition of the Politiken off his lap, hopped out of his bean bag chair, and went online to see what was big these days. He obviously got the message that remakes of retro games, and even new games with the retro style applied were all the craze. “That’s how I’ll do it. I’ll rip off old games, put a guy with a tie on it, and make the big bucks!” he must have thought. And thus the Braid project had begun. He must have looked at some old Mario games, and mumbled “Yeah, this’ll do fine,” and got to work. Countless chai teas later, Braid was done.

But something was missing… something that would make it unique… Something that would set it apart from the countless other platformers made throughout the decades. All out of tea, he put a $15 price stamp on it and called it a day.

And this is the biggest flaw of the game. $15 is a fortune compared to the sultry $10 most games cost on XBLA, and I consider it an insult to gamers. Instead of thinking about what’s best for the consumer, he thought what was best for his wallet. By filling a game with pretentiousness and horrible artwork, he thought enough people would be fooled into thinking, “Well, there has to be SOMETHING here, or else it wouldn’t cost $15. Right?” Well Mr. Blow, your clever tactic worked. Critics are starting to put forth a nonexistent metaphor about how the gameplay element of time relates to the story. The only metaphor here is that time is money, and that money is being reversed right out of your bank account. Another thing they bring up is the use of the paintings, and how it conveys the story in an emotional way. The only story here is the story you’ll be telling your friends about the time you were conned out of $15.

Perhaps this is the direction the industry is going. Perhaps one day, we’ll sign on to our console’s online store for games, and instead of the sweet $9.99 or 800 points, we’ll see $14.99 and 1200 points in their place. Of course, we’ll have no choice but to concede, and weep as we look over our bank or credit statements at the end of the month. Independent game makers are taking advantage of the connotation that the word “independent” brings, and are using it to con us out of our money, and I for one will not stand for this. People seem to think that just because a company calls themselves independent, their products are automatically good, then rush to buy anything they put out. Braid is a prime example of this illogical reasoning.

Braid is a horrible game and should never be talked about in the positive light. The game is nothing but a clever marketing ploy to con us gamers into taking our hard earned $15 and flushing it down the toilet.

This gamer will be spending his money more wisely on the much better $10 games.

Braid isn’t even worth a numbered grade/10.

-(CE)Ian