Time is not a nice concept. You will learn to love that.
Just over a year ago Braid hit the 360's XBLA Marketplace and turned 2D platforming on its time-space head. The beautiful-looking indie title wowed PC and 360 gamers who dove into protagonist Tim's melancholy quest to set things right in his life by bending the rules of time around him - a power many of us still wish we had for the majority of our lives. Finally it's available on the PlayStation 3 via the PlayStation Network, thanks to publisher Hothead Games, and it's just as warped as ever.
That isn't a bad thing in any case. The game in its original form has simply been ported over with a $15 price tag (same as its PC and XBLA counterpart), ready for action. While only a few hours in length, that doesn't change the fact that the game's challenging crux still has enough of a punch to feel refreshingly new even a year down the road. In the same vein of Portal, newcomers will be asked to engage the fourth dimension on a 2D scale in order to solve the game's occasionally trying puzzles, in order to complete Tim's story.
It looks gorgeous and sounds fantastic, too. That's all a testament to Jonathon Blow's vision-come-to life and how well-realized it turned out to be. The game is a delightful product that never feels lacking or leaves players with a sense of being short-changed.
If you haven't played it yet due to its inaccessibility to PS3 owners then it's time to bite. Braid's release on PSN takes us back a year where nothing has changed; it's still brilliant and gamers should give it a shot.
