The Scoreboard #16

Alright, we want a straight answer: which one of you took away all the games? Seriously, we had a rockin’ summer of constantly kick-ass releases, and now there’s nothin’ for us to review on The Scoreboard. It’s not like we don’t have anything this week, though. We managed to scrape a few games from the depths of Xbox Live this week with Arcade to analyze; Braid is on the list along with Bionic Commando Rearmed, Fable II Pub Games, and the much overlooked Go! Go! Break Steady. Oh yeah, there may or may not be an appearance by Madden 09 as well, so keep your eyes peeled for that bad boy.

Braid 

If you’re going in to Braid for Achievements, you’ve got a problem. No, we’ve got a problem – as in you and us. It does have Achievements to be earned, but the 200 points are worthless in the face of Braid’s clever story and brilliant simplicity. That said, we aren’t going to complain about how they’re laid out – you’ve got to see the whole game to max out your earnings. And damned if it isn’t something you’d do anyway.

Best Achievement: Closure (60 pts.) Complete the game – Ironically, the finale gives you just a bit of closure, but trust us: Braid’s ending is up there with BioShock, Mass Effect and Portal. The game is something you’ve got to experience in full to have the ending resonate with you emotionally. Being that it’s mandatory to solve everything before wrapping it up, your Gamerscore will temporarily suffer, but your reputation will skyrocket when you’ve scored Braid’s penultimate Achievement. You’ve got the badge and the points to prove you’ve seen it, and you can tell everyone how smart you are for having done so.

Worst Achievement: Solved World 5 (15 pts.) Fit together all the world 5 puzzle pieces and align the puzzle in its frame. – This is purely based on personal experience, but World 5 gave us more grief than any other. Maybe we’re just too stupid to figure out transdimensional existence or something, but some of the puzzle pieces seemed impossible to reach at points. Knowing that the solution is always there just rubs in the fact that you still don’t have the Achievement for solving a particular world.

Easiest Achievement: Transversed World 2 (10 pts.) Travel all the way across World 2. – Can you hold the analog stick to the right? Do that for a minute or two until you’ve walked through enough doors to reach the first adorable dino is his gigantic castle for the first 10 points in the game. In fact, all of the “Transversed” Achievements involve doing just this, though some levels have a fugly boss in the middle that needs some serious crushing. This is what we like to call a “cake walk.”

Hardest Achievement: Speed Run (15 pts.) Complete a full speed run of the entire game, beating the challenge time. – Let’s hope you’ve got a good memory. You’re going to need to bring up the solutions to many a puzzle on insta-recall. Speeding through Braid is no easy task, and no amount of rewinding is going to save your slow ass here. You’ve got to haul through levels a-hippin’ and a-hoppin’ on platforms to nab keys and pieces as fast as Tim’s stubby little legs will carry him.

Time Investment vs. Payoff: 8 (out of ten) – Braid is a short adventure, and though you’ll play through some of the puzzles multiple times, it shouldn’t take too many hours to completely solve it and earn all 200 Gamerscore.

Overall: 9 (out of ten) – Achievements come when they should: when you do something worthwhile. Clearing a stage isn’t all that impressive, but going back to completely create a jigsaw puzzle is rewarding and brings out the Gamerscore. In an excellent move by designer Jonathon Blow, you’re forced to see just about everything (What do those stars mean? Wink wink) and to make full use of your point extracting skills.

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