Jan 30 -- My first missed post!

The second day in to this thing and I miss a post. I would love to tell you I was so busy playing games I didn't have the time to post anything; but it was more like the kids were screaming, the dishes were dirty, and napping has such strong allure. I did play two more games with my daughter though. Games with kids will be a popular topic here over the year.

Note to self: check out Blogger's delayed posting options. Fixt!

Game of the Day: BRAID

My needs for graphical awesomeness kind of peaked in the 16-bit era. Every development after that is nice, don't get me wrong, but it's not a requirement for me to enjoy a game. Some folks need pixel shaders and ray tracing, I mostly need 256 colors and 64x64 sprites I'm sure Braid has some graphical awesomeness tied up in the cloud effects and the rewind mechanic, but it looks great just chugging along in all its SNESsy goodness.

You are Tim.  Like the controls in a million other throwback 2-D platformers, Tim can jump on bad guys and that's about it--oh, except for the ability to rewind time and what not. That is a pretty amazing development, and it turns Braid into one of the best games I have ever played. About a million people have written about Braid, and most better than me. I can't add anything to the praises and lauds other than this game has a moment that made me say, "Whoa." I haven't said that whole playing a game since Metroid back in 1986 when a random bomb drop opened a secret spot on the floor and there was a whole new world in there. Braid hit me like that. 


The back story for Braid is even good. The developer, Jonathan Blow pulled together $200,000 of his own money, spent a good amount of that on art and used buzz and indie game shows to blow people's minds. The game hit like a bomb at $20 on XBLA and has since been ported to PC, Mac, and PSN. It's hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that two people have made one of the best games ever. When you compare this to the teams of (literally) hundreds used to produce "blockbusters" like Halo 3 or Modern Warfare 2, I'm heartened that a good idea and hard work can actually still work out for a couple for guys with a good idea. 


Braid is amazing. If you can try it, do so; if you can afford it, buy it.