Campaigning 08: Braid

Braid: I was gifted Microsoft points from Souvenir City’s own PostersRise, and I decided to go with a game that has a strong single player experience. I heard great things about Braid over the last few months, and figured now was as good a time as any to jump in. The music is great, sets a good tone for the game, and the time mechanics are fun, yet simple to play with. Controls nice, strong score, and interesting art direction, so far so good.

I open the game to my shadowy character running down some shadowy platform. At the end of this platform I reach a machine with “World 2″ projecting from it. I press the B button next to the machine, and enter W2. Upon my arrival six stalls are in front of me, standing next to each reveals a bit of the story, and apparently I’m off to find a Princess. The reason she’s not around is because the main character, Tim, “made a mistake.”

So onto finding that Princess. The first door leads to “3 Easy Pieces,” which is just as it says it is. I grab all three puzzle pieces, as the ground acts as a tutorial by showing you pictures to illustrate what to do. Next I’m onto “The Cloud Bridge.” First grabbed the key to unlock the gate to the Cloud Bridges, grabbed another two easy puzzle pieces, but could not grab the next two. There’s a puzzle solving area in the middle of this stage, but I did not have all the pieces needed for the puzzle. I moved onto the next room.

“Hunt!” Another easy room. Avoided killing the second monster at first, which led to me using it as a jump boost to get to the platform with the ladder. After killing off all the monsters I opened the door to the puzzle piece. Moved onto the next room, “Leap of Faith,” which was tricky. I grabbed the first puzzle piece by using a movable platform to move a monster towards the piece, then I used that monster for a jump boost. The second piece I grabbed from the Leap of faith jump between the two spiked platforms, a third I grabbed on my way up a ladder. I didn’t grab the fourth one, but found World 2’s castle, a dinosaur came out and told me the Princess was somewhere else, and sent me back to the beginning of the game.

World 2’s “Leap of Faith”

A screen next to World 2’s screen turned on, and said World 3, but I had to go back for the last three puzzle pieces I skipped. I went back to “The Cloud Bridge,” and used two certain puzzle pieces to make a bridge. I used the bridge to get me across to the highest puzzle piece, and then used the bridge to trick the Monster, who walked out onto the bride, and then I moved it away from him, causing him to drop. Another jump boost for the last puzzle piece here, and I went back to “Leap of Faith.” Here I found that I needed to jump boost a monster, who was being shot out of a canon, to get the final puzzle piece. Timing was everything, and the time reversal skill came into play more here than any other part of the World for me. After about ten minutes I acquired the puzzle piece, and went back to “The Cloud Bridge” to finish off the World 2 Puzzle.

Achievements unlocked: Traverse World 2, Solved World 2

Campaigning 08: Gears of War 2 (Hardcore)

Gears of War 2: Until now, the Gears of War 2 campaign had remained relatively untouched by me. I couldn’t bring myself to play another boring campaign like the one in Gears of War. Constantly I’d hear friends telling me how “awesome,” “bad ass,” and “epic,” the new campaign was. They’d tell me how everything had been improved. The story this, and boss battles that, but little did I care what they had to say, as I just kept plugging away, ignoring the story mode of the sequel to one of my favorite all time games. That is, until last night…

PostersRise and I decided to embark on the journey through the center of Seram, after a few lackluster late night Horde sessions with random kids on our team. Posters had already beaten the game on Hardcore, but was willing to run through “one mo’ gen,” as I hosted up a match. I had finished the first three parts of Act I or Chapter I, whichever one is the biggest subcategory, so we jumped in right after the part where you must protect Betty, as you ride it to victory. We did work on the Troika/Gas station part, owned the Matrix rip-offs that were called Reavers (I think), and went on to me acquiring four achievements.

1. Collector: Acquire 5 of 41 collectibles
Posters kept walking me up to collectibles as we marched through the chapter. I’d say we missed a few, but I’ll get them on the next playthru (if there is one).

2. Girl About Town: Seen the sights with Betty
I believe I got this right when we finished the second defend Betty Mission. I also acquired Dizzy as a playable character in online modes at this time.

3. That sinking Feeling: Watched Ilma sink
The last story progression achievement I got.

4. Open relationship: Finish 10 chapters on Co-Op
Between what I did with GodhartsYankees whenever it was that we played, and the parts Posters and I finished, I’m on my way.

So far this campaign has reminded me a bit of The Matrix meets Lord of the Rings. I’m not sure if they consciously mean to rip off both movies (and Terminator a bit also) like Mortal Kombat ripped off Big Trouble in Little China, but I think they did. Fought some Kantus’ for the first time in campaign (instead of Horde), and they were even more annoying audibly. I’m not all that impressed with the campaign so far, but it’s also not the worst thing that’s ever happened to me, so I’m sure I’ll finish it up.