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Games => General Gaming => Topic started by: Cobra951 on Friday, August 08, 2008, 04:07:22 PM
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I played the trial for this last night and I'm on the verge of buying it with the points I have left on account. It's wildly original and beautifully done. What's making me hesitate is the $15 price tag and the reported shortness of the game. It's gotten quite a bit of positive attention (http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/xbox360/braid), and you get a good sense of why from the trial. It's a 2D platformer, but not really. Time manipulation is everything to solve the devious puzzles, and manipulating time at will negates all platforming challenge. Anyone who can should try it. Now I have a hard decision to make. I hate to encourage higher price points for shorter games. This one may be worth the risk.
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I feel precisely the same. I enjoyed it quite a bit and I don't generally like platformers. I'm torn.
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Well, I broke down yesterday and spent 1200 of my remaining 1360 MS points (which won't be getting augmented anytime soon) on this. As I said, the game is all about time-based puzzles in the guise of a 2D platformer. I went through 4 of the worlds, though I was only able to complete the jigsaws on the first 2. I have a few pieces in the others absolutely kicking my ass.
The game is indie all the way. The graphics look and move sort of like Aquaria's. Good atmospheric music accompanies them, getting warped appropriately by the time elements in the game. You do need some platforming skill, and unlike my initial impression, you don't always get infinite redo's. There are things in the game which are not affected by the reversal of time. These can be used by the game in maddening ways, forcing you to exit an area and reenter to reset the puzzle, or retry fairly lengthy sequences. Nothing wrong with that.
Regarding the historically high cost, the author detailed his thoughts and experiences on his page (http://braid-game.com/news/?p=303) as a reply to a comment.
# Jonathan Blow Says:
August 10th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
Electro: Braid took about 3 years and 5 months to make, though there were some breaks in there, so if you condense it down it’s less. I did consulting at some points during Braid to have some income, but I eventually stopped this and got a loan to finish the game, because I felt the consulting was interfering with my ability to work on Braid in a concentrated way, and thought that the quality of the game might suffer (and that it would take too long to be finished).
As for how much money it takes to break even — it’s a lot. When all those people on forums complain about the price of XBLA game, what they don’t realize is that almost everyone is losing money on these games. (It’s just economy of scale; if only 60,000 people buy a game, and it costs $10, not enough money ends up in the developer’s hands to justify anything but making shovelware.)
For me to truly break even (i.e. not be financially punished for choosing to make this game), I would have to earn back:
(1) The testing, localization and ratings board submission advance that was put forth by Microsoft. (This is a significant chunk of money.)
(2) All the money I paid other people to work on the art, sound, and extra programming. (This is A LOT).
(3) Replace the savings I spent for cost-of-living, buying software and hardware, and stuff like that, during the years spent developing Braid.
(4) Pay back other misc debts that accrued during this time due to me being broke and / or focusing money on finishing the game (e.g. the taxes I did not pay last year.. that’s sizable).
(5) If I hadn’t been working on Braid, I would have had a job for those years, so… years worth of income at a reasonable-to-high-end job. (Realistically speaking, this part is just not going to happen — I used to do game technology consulting and bill at a very high hourly rate. So rather than expecting to make that, my attitude is just, to make *something* reasonable).
Now, the kicker is that 1-2 are pre-tax, but 3-5 are post-tax. So any money that doesn’t go directly into paying off the advance or the people who worked on the game, gets automatically divided by 2 (as I get mauled by the IRS and the state where I live).
So the way you figure out how much money Braid is making, is:
Take the total number of copies sold, multiply that by $15.
Multiply that by a fraction higher than .5 but less than .8.
Subtract two big numbers from that.
If the result so far is positive, divide it by two.
Subtract two or three more big numbers.
Right now this comes out to a significantly negative number, but the hopes are that over time it will come out positive.
That all makes sense, but I still think at some point not too far in the future, he needs to drop the price to fall in line with expectations, to get continued sales. Nothing wrong with grabbing the eager early crowds at the higher price, though.
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Finished it last night. It left me with more questions than it answered. The story gets increasingly enigmatic toward the end. I'm left with the impression that it isn't really important to the game, regardless of press to the contrary. I don't really know what happened, though I have some vague notions. The game is indeed short and there isn't much reason to replay it. One speed run should end all my interest. It's all about the puzzles, each one unique. My conclusion is that there isn't enough here for the price tag. Nicely done, but not nearly enough of it.
Edit: I have one more observation. How gratuitous it may be I'll leave for others to judge. This is an ideal reviewer's game. It is very good and very short. Reviewers get free copies (as acknowledged by the author, who mentioned thousands of free copies) so bang for the buck is infinite. And no deadlines are strained, because the whole experience is finished in 2 sittings, 1 if they cheat or they're a lot smarter than I am.
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I tried the trial version and am really impressed. Very tempted to pick up the full version of this game... but the 1200 point price tag is making me think about it first.
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Theres alot of over critical analysis of this game which seems silly to me. It looks great and its got of alot of great ideas and conventions going for it but people are getting all these genius vibes coming out of it like theres all these subliminal deep layers hidden within. I havent played it yet so I cant speak to any of it, but I wanna say if perhaps Super Mario Bros. 2 was released now and it didnt include the ending sequence of the game people would be doing the same thing with this.
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Everyone goes on and on about the hidden meanings in Braid, and while it's all interesting, it doesn't change what the game is at all. The object is to solve unique puzzles in a 2D sidescrolling platformer with several different takes on time manipulation. It's beautifully drawn, with backgrounds that look alive in a surreal way. It has some gorgeous music (http://braid-game.com/news/?p=260) licensed from a few Magnatune artists. It's inventive and a good way to spend a couple of evenings in deep thought. Then it ends and there is little reason to go through it again--except for a second layer of secrets that is so obscure that I dare anyone to complete it without reading anything about it. Without some inkling that it exists, chances are you won't even know it's there.
A lot of care went into it, and it does work on more than one level, story-wise. Whatever you do, don't look up any answers until after you complete the game once. Otherwise, you're wasting your money.
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Bought it yesterday... hoping to spend some time on this sometime this week.
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Braid gets an editorial and a half from Zero Puncuation.
Really funny. (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/203-Braid)
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I finished this up last week and was blown away. The story isn't very clear, but the end does reveal some very interesting things. Apparently, there is still stuff to do once you have acquired all 60 puzzle pieces. I'm not sure if I'm going to go back and pick those up though.
Really good game and definitely worth playing.
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I finished this up last week and was blown away. The story isn't very clear, but the end does reveal some very interesting things. Apparently, there is still stuff to do once you have acquired all 60 puzzle pieces. I'm not sure if I'm going to go back and pick those up though.
I started to, then gave it up. It's there for obsessive completists.
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You guys really have to watch this (http://www.gametrailers.com/player/usermovies/266385.html), if only so you can immediately want to kill yourself afterward. No, seriously. Watch it and laugh. Or cry. Or... be completely unaffected. Whatever.
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I can't comment about that in a non-racist way. So I will abstain.
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I can. That guy is a fucking idiot. It's not racist. He's just an idiot. Plus his songs suck.
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Yesss.... bring me your hate. It fuels my powers.
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PC Version planned for Feb-March 2009.
Mac version should be not too long after that. (http://braid-game.com/news/)
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Thank god. Now I just need to hear that Rez HD is coming to PSN and my life will be complete.
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Did I post about REZ in DC emulation? It works very well. That aside, REZ HD would probably be the first thing I'd buy off of either PSN or Live!
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Braid PC is coming on March 31st.
Impulse will have it.
It'll cost $19.95. (http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/57279)
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On one hand, woo! Great!
On the other hand, an 8 month wait plus a price hike? Seriously?
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Hmm, why is it more expensive on PC? That's the opposite of.. everything else.
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I'm glad it's on Impulse, but the douchebag that makes that game can go fuck himself. I'm not paying $20 for that when everyone else got it for half that.
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Is there like any new or extra content?
I guess it'll be worth a buy if it has one of those weekend sales Impulse (or Steam) has for really dirt cheap pricing.
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They have decided to lower the price (http://braid-game.com/news/?p=519) to $15, which matches the 360 version. Which is great, but from his explanation it seems like he doesn't understand why people were upset.
Some people have asked why I picked the $20 price point. The answer is, I just looked at some comparable games on the PC and saw how much they were charging. Crayon Physics Deluxe, World of Goo, and Aquaria, among many others, are all priced at $20. It seemed reasonable not to charge less for Braid than for those games.
That is reasonable logic if this was the initial release of the game on its primary platform. Its not. You already charged less for the game someplace else. Do you think PC gamers are stupid and wouldn't notice?
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To be honest, I don't understand it either. It's worth what people will pay for it, and $5 is hardly a ripoff markup anyway. (The XBLA price is itself a $5 markup from the previously established $10 for new games. Now it may become the new norm.) $20 is a common price for good downloadable independent PC games.
I just read about this on Joystiq (http://www.joystiq.com/2009/02/18/braid-pc-price-rewound-to-15/). You beat me to it.
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I am glad he came to his senses quickly, well before release... PC gamers love finding excuses to pirate.
"What? HE IS CHARGING $5 EXTRA? HOW DARE HE? THAT'S IT! I AM TAKING THIS FOR FREE!"
:P
edit:
J. Blow responds to a comment on his blog: "I’m not some kind of weird platform loyalist. The PC is not some sports team that is playing the Xbox 360 for the World Cup. "
hahahaha
That made me laugh because that's the sorta thing I've told fanboys countless times before. Some of these people favor their one platform so vehemently, that they believe that developers and company executives carry the same favoritism. :P
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Sometimes they do *cough*Cliff Bleszinski*cough*
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Yeah, a lot of them do, actually.
I thought the game was originally $10. From what I've seen, it seems like $15 might even be a bit of a stretch. No offense to the dude, but the amount of game you get with Braid (at least from what I understand -- I've never owned it) compared to something like Aquaria is laughable, unless you're really stupid and take ten hours to solve each puzzle.
Eh. Whatever. It's another one of those games that's been blown up so much I just can't bring myself to care. Like Portal, which I actually bought, but still find too boring and simplistic to actually complete.
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Heh, yeah. Saying you're going to now go pirate it over $5 is stupid. Wait for a price drop or a sale or something.
Its not so much it was $20. If it launched at that price I'd be cool with that. But you can't expect to charge $5 MORE months after the original release on another platform for what seems like no gain. Ok, well..you *can* charge more, but you shouldn't be surprised that people would bitch.
Jonathan probably wasn't showing favoritism, but I think he underestimated the PC audience. If you decide to pull stuff like this, expect to offer a reason better than "Because the other guys charge more than I initially did."
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Heh, yeah. Saying you're going to now go pirate it over $5 is stupid. Wait for a price drop or a sale or something.
Exactly.
Its not so much it was $20. If it launched at that price I'd be cool with that. But you can't expect to charge $5 MORE months after the original release on another platform for what seems like no gain. Ok, well..you *can* charge more, but you shouldn't be surprised that people would bitch.
If you're gonna charge more, then better be some sort of benefit -- i.e. some more NEW extra content.
Jonathan probably wasn't showing favoritism, but I think he underestimated the PC audience. If you decide to pull stuff like this, expect to offer a reason better than "Because the other guys charge more than I initially did."
PC Gamers ain't mindless sheep.
They got minds of their own.
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Are they not sheeple?
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Especially when you consider that for most console releases, it's cheaper to buy things on PC. So if I can buy a new game on 360 for $60, and the same game on PC for $50, he should be charging $10 for his game on PC. Or $5. Or, you know, make it freeware like the dozens of deep, lasting, or legendary games we've got already that cost absolutely nothing and which provide more gameplay. I don't understand why people don't realize that you need to give people a reason to buy your game. I mean, you need a compelling reason, plain and simple, and you certainly can't expect to jack up your price for absolutely no consumer-centric reason. Braid's concept may be unique and cool, but it isn't that amazing. It's just another puzzle game with its own twist, which is fine; but you can only get away with calling a short, mildly clever puzzle game astounding and innovative if you're Valve.
Besides that, when you delay the release as long as he did for one platform you have to expect excitement to be at an all-time low. Tons of PC gamers haven't played Braid, but we've already seen a lot of what makes it special. What's to get all worked up about now? Playing a game everybody else was done being excited about last year? Of course that's not everything, especially not to anyone who plays games for the experience rather than getting into the mob mentality, but if you don't consider momentum as a game developer or publisher, you're pretty stupid.
EDIT - Er, that was in response to Idol's post. You other people post stuff faster than I do.
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Especially when you consider that for most console releases, it's cheaper to buy things on PC. So if I can buy a new game on 360 for $60, and the same game on PC for $50, he should be charging $10 for his game on PC. Or $5.
Amen.
It's just another puzzle game with its own twist, which is fine; but you can only get away with calling a short, mildly clever puzzle game astounding and innovative if you're Valve.
LMAO @ that!
Besides that, when you delay the release as long as he did for one platform you have to expect excitement to be at an all-time low. Tons of PC gamers haven't played Braid, but we've already seen a lot of what makes it special. What's to get all worked up about now? Playing a game everybody else was done being excited about last year? Of course that's not everything, especially not to anyone who plays games for the experience rather than getting into the mob mentality, but if you don't consider momentum as a game developer or publisher, you're pretty stupid.
Que hit the nail in the coffin here.
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I'm still missing something here. How has he insulted anyone? The game is certainly old news to me, but that's because I own a 360. Those without access to one haven't experienced the game, so it's new to them. JB is is a force of one, so it only stands to reason that ports wouldn't be in the pipeline simultaneously with the original console release. That's a lot of work and it takes time. He was also right on the money, literally. At $10 a shot it would not have paid the bills. Some of it undeniably was luck. He struck a nerve with the critics and public that no one could have predicted. Braid could have withered on the vine, but it didn't.
The shoe is on the other foot with Flower. That game intrigues me, but it will remain no more than trailers and conversation until it gets ported to something I have access to. It will be new to me then. This doesn't exactly offer dozens of hours of unrepeated gameplay either, does it?
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Porting cost would be minimal, and if anything porting costs were covered when he made it for 360. The game was originally shown and developed (for quite some time) on PC. So its hard to say if this is actually a port, or just him finally being able to release it on this platform.
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Sometimes they do *cough*Cliff Bleszinski*cough*
Lol yes. Forgot about him.
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The shoe is on the other foot with Flower. That game intrigues me, but it will remain no more than trailers and conversation until it gets ported to something I have access to. It will be new to me then. This doesn't exactly offer dozens of hours of unrepeated gameplay either, does it?
No, but it's genuine art with a deeply emotive core, where Braid is just a puzzle game that tries to be artsy by applying liberal doses of convoluted exposition that don't make sense to anyone.
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I think this is essentially the same argument as the delayed release of Gears of War for PC. Epic were baffled at how people just weren't as excited about it, even though it was released a little over a year after the X360 version. They added a chapter too, but a chapter is not a whole game in itself; it was only about an additional 1-2 hours of gameplay anyway.
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No, but it's genuine art with a deeply emotive core, where Braid is just a puzzle game that tries to be artsy by applying liberal doses of convoluted exposition that don't make sense to anyone.
You can't understand Braid without playing it anymore than I can understand Flower by thinking of Flow (a game that first perplexed me and then bored me). It's not like you to bash so resolutely an indie game you haven't played, and I wonder why you're so determined.
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Well, I've played it a bit, and every review I read said the same thing. Even most people who really liked the game said the story exposition, while interesting, was sort of incomprehensible and made no real sense. I'm not saying Braid is a bad game, I'm saying it's not achieving (or even trying to achieve) the same thing as Flower. They're really not games you can compare to one another, and given my own personal preferences, I place Flower as much more worthy for what it accomplished just because its more resonant with me.
To be honest with you, I just don't like Jonathan Blow. I've read some of his comments here and there, read interviews, and heard podcasts and stuff at events where he was present, and he just strikes me as an asshat. That's no reflection on his game, but it doesn't surprise me in the least that he thought it'd be a great idea to charge $20 for his game on PC. He just seems like that kind of guy.
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That makes sense now. Yeah, if you don't like someone personally, it's hard to get into anything they do. I can watch Tom Cruise but not Roseanne Barr. That sort of thing. :)
Someday I'll have a PS3. Someday. *Sigh*
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And don't get me wrong... I don't know the guy from a hole in the ground. Just some of the stuff he's said has rubbed me the wrong way. I think his game is worthy of success, even if I'm not going to rush out and buy it, and I hope that it does well on PC. It might be just me, but for some reason the guy's thoughts don't seem to quite jive with mine from a lot of what I've read.
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He definitely thinks of Number One first. I got that impression immediately when listening to a long podcast in which he was interviewed. I guess it just didn't bother me. I remember trying my hand at exactly the same thing with decades-older tech. It was a big surprise to a very naive former self how little you get for your efforts if you don't know how to fight for money (or even know it's necessary). He made the right moves and they paid off. The $15 price on XBLA got vocal opposition, but turned out to be warranted. He miscalculated on the PC price, then realized it quickly and adjusted to it. He may be cocky, but he isn't stupid.
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Braid PC will also be coming to Steam.
And it'll cost $15 (http://kotaku.com/5160251/braid-coming-to-steam)
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I suppose they'll be complaining next because it's on sale for $10 on XBLA.
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Well, it gave Impulse a nice two month start on the Steam version...
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So I bought Braid with my 20% discount on Impulse. While I enjoyed it, I'm glad I didn't pay more.
The gameplay itself is pretty fun, and the time manipulation was really interesting. What the game needed was some more levels. It is really short. I want to play more but there is no more to play, and I started playing...what, yesterday?
The story stuff is way overblown. There was a neat twist at the end (that I won't spoil) that uses the time manipulation itself to tell a story which I thought was great, but other than that it all felt so pretentious and unrewarding. You can leave stories up to interpretation, but Braid seems to be so utterly vague that you have no idea whats actually going on. Thats not "powerful", its just blowing smoke.
If you can play it for cheap, go for it. Its fun, for the gameplay. Just don't listen to the reviews that make a big deal out of the story. Its a big "games are art" wankfest.
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$4.99 on Steam this weekend for Braid PC. (http://store.steampowered.com/app/26800/)
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Thats probably what its worth. I've played free platformers that were far better in terms of gameplay, longevity, and replay value. You just can't wear a monocle and sip wine while you discuss its meaning with other pretentious assholes afterwards.
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Thats probably what its worth. I've played free platformers that were far better in terms of gameplay, longevity, and replay value. You just can't wear a monocle and sip wine while you discuss its meaning with other pretentious assholes afterwards.
Okay, I'll make sure to get my monocle and wine ready, once I eventually buy this game and play it (likely when it'll be $5 on Impulse)...
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I picked it up on a whim on Impulse and haven't even played it yet.
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I picked it up on a whim on Impulse and haven't even played it yet.
Nothing wrong w/ supporting Stardock. :)
Oh, and Jonathan Blow, too.
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Meh. I think his last name is appropriate.
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Tried the demo of this and uninstalled it. I like platformers and all but I don't see what the big fucking deal is with this game.
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Tried the demo of this and uninstalled it. I like platformers and all but I don't see what the big fucking deal is with this game.
I'm not sure how far the demo lets you go, but the game becomes a mindfuck later. I got like halfway through and then got distracted by other stuff and haven't played it in months. Now when I go back and try to pickup where I left off, there are time bending concepts I've forgotten and I feel like that's fucking me up and I need to start over to relearn them.
I feel the same way about the math classes I took in high school and college. I did algebra, geometry, geometry 2, and trig in high school, then I couldn't test out of college algebra because I forgot the the fuck to do it all, so I had to take the class.
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The game is more like a puzzle game that uses platforming mechanics, not really a real platformer. There are puzzles and you solve them by doing specific platformy things, then move on to the next puzzle.
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Meh. I think his last name is appropriate.
ROFL!
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Braid PC is currently $4.99 on Impulse for the weekend. (http://www.impulsedriven.com/braid)
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I actually picked it up during the Steam sale for $2.49. I then proceeded to play through it, really damn cool game.
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I'm pretty sure most people here have played this game already on the Xbox360 or the PC, but it's also 50% off on PSN until Jan. 27 -- it's going for $7.49, which is still more expensive than most of the sales posted above.
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I am definitely buying it tonight on PSN tonight. Finally, a reasonable sale on PSN.
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I got it on PSN and took a bit to download it. Once it was done, I tried to play, and it wouldn't let me saying it needed to download a 240mb patch first.
What B.S.! Why not integrate the final version into the original download like steam!?
This happened with Little Big Planet. I had to wait three or four hours to play because there was almost a GB of mandatory patching. The worse of it is that these game patches can't be downloaded in the background.
PSN is definitely more backwards than XBL or Steam.
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Yeah, that is stupid. Having patches is great, but for digital download if the person has to download the full game then that download should always be the full latest version. Especially when the games are relatively small anyway, since the "patches" sometimes the same size as the full game!
In another thread I tackled the problem of not being able to download updates in the background. Using a neat proxy program you can capture the download URLs and download the files on your PC, then the program can point to that local file when the PS3 requests it again. Its pretty much the only way for me to use PSN.
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Yea I think this patch was about as big as the game, which is just... well... lazy.
I've been having issues with my ISP lately, so this is doubly frustrating. I am switching to a better DSL company soon, but yea this sucks.
So far every game I've bought on the PS3, I haven't been able to play straight out of the box. It doesn't make sense to me that they wouldn't allow you to play while the patch was being downloaded though.
The other thing is that there is no download management to speak of. Say I am downloading a 500MB patch and something goes wrong at 400MB... why would I have to start again?
Obviously the other solution is not to go online at all, but then you have to turn off your router, and with those devices constantly having their periods, it is too much of a hassle.
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You don't have to turn off your router, you can just disconnect through the PS3.
I completely agree with you, though. Between the time you first put the disk in and actually play, an hour can pass easily. I guess that's the direction that consoles are going now with updates, but there should at least be a "Play using current version / download newest patch / download while playing older version" option after you first install.
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I've been able to skip any updates on the PS3 I've come across and still play. It kicks you off PSN, but I can still play.
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You can skip updates on both the 360 and the PS3, but it will kick you offline.
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How do you skip it on the PS3? It told me that there was an update and that it was going to download it. My only option was "OK".
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That really blows. On the 360, you get kicked offline, but you can still play, like idol's experience with PSN. Are you sure you can't just skip it or avoid that screen somehow, and play offline anyway? Maybe Ghandi's advice is the answer.
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You can hit Circle and it should cancel the update.
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After the PSN sale, I finally got a hold of this.
So, it is pretty cool. I love the music, and the art is good, and I've just finished the first room and it is pretty cool. I do think it is a game that at this stage probably would suffer from its own hype... kinda like the movie "Lost in Translation".
Also before I started the first room, the crap about the princess and all was so weird. I could see what he was trying to say, but maybe he should have hired someone to write it for him? Or will that make sense later?
Anyway, I am enjoying it, and hope to get to the "mind fuck" bits later.
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If it seems like a standard platformer, you haven't played long enough yet. I enjoyed it, but I paid too much for it. The price point now makes a lot more sense for a few hours of unique puzzling.
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Also before I started the first room, the crap about the princess and all was so weird. I could see what he was trying to say, but maybe he should have hired someone to write it for him? Or will that make sense later?
It will never make sense.
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It almost seems like it was written by a second language student.
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Someone give me a heads up next time this goes on sale somewhere. I saw a physical copy marked down to 13 bucks, but that's still too expensive for me.
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Someone give me a heads up next time this goes on sale somewhere. I saw a physical copy marked down to 13 bucks, but that's still too expensive for me.
For what platform you looking to buy it on?
Any platform?
PC? (likely would be either Impulse or Steam here)
X360?
PS3?
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For what platform you looking to buy it on?
Any platform?
PC? (likely would be either Impulse or Steam here)
X360?
PS3?
Ultimately I suppose it doesn't matter. What reading I've done suggests there's little to no difference in the game among platforms. The physical copy I saw was obviously for PC.
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Ultimately I suppose it doesn't matter. What reading I've done suggests there's little to no difference in the game among platforms. The physical copy I saw was obviously for PC.
Whoa...I didn't even realize there were physical copies for the PC version...
I thought only Impulse and Steam had it digitally still....
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On one hand, I applaud the time mechanic and how each level/world has it's own gimmick. On the other, I think people are looking into the exposition entirely too much. Either way, I'm glad I got this as part of a bundle and didn't pay a lot for it.