Wandering Into The Void: September 2008

Braid is an independently developed platformer that has gotten a lot of attention lately, even from some mainstream media. The hook that sets it apart from other indie platformers on the market is that you can manipulate time in various ways depending on the level; as an example, in some levels you can just rewind time, in others, when you move left-to-right, time goes forward, but when you move right-to-left, time reverses - as illustrated in the video below.

I think that's pretty fucking cool.

Of course any game could have incorporated such a mechanic and still been ho-hum. Apparently what sets Braid apart is that it is really, really fucking good - perhaps even profound. So why am I posting about it instead of playing the fuck out of it?

Because right now it's only available as a download on the Xbox 360.

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You know what's fucking sad?

I saw that they now had Xbox 360's for $200 and I actually considered picking one up. I mean there's other games I'd be interested in picking up later - Dead Rising, Mass Effect (I hear the PC version is buggy and I'd probably have to upgrade my hardware to run it decently - something I'm not willing to do at this point), but really, even considering to buy a $200 game system to play a $15 game is pretty depraved.

However, the more I looked into the whole Xbox thing, the more disappointing it became. The $200 "Arcade" version of the Xbox 360 does not include a hard drive. I figure I'm going to need that to play a game that's downloaded from the internet. It comes with a 256MB card, but I have found nothing to indicate whether that would be enough for Braid, so I'm going to assume it's not just to be safe.

So I'd need a hard drive - an external 20GB Hard drive for an Xbox 360 is $80. BUT the next Xbox 360 model above the $200 one comes with a 20GB hard drive built in - that model costs $259. Well so much for the $200 Xbox 360!

But wait, there's more!!!

None of the Xbox 360s come with wireless built in, if you want to use a wireless network with your Xbox 360, you need a special Microsoft(TM) Xbox360(TM) wireless adapter!!! While wireless adapters for PCs can be found for as low as $20, the super special wireless adapter for an Xbox 360 is between $80 and $99.

Furthermore, in order to download Braid you need to SUBSCRIBE to Xbox Live Silver or Gold. Oh boy, pay a subscription for the privilege of paying to buy games?!!! Sign me right the fuck up! And beyond that, you can't BUY Braid with REGULAR moneys! Nooooooo!!! You need to exchange your REGULAR moneys for Xbox points... Braid is $15 worth of Xbox points, but Xbox points are bought in increments of $19.99. Figure THAT out.

So yeah, I'm not going to buy an Xbox 360 ever - it's just too complicated. Steam is so easy. Braid is supposed to be available for the PC by the end of the year, but game release dates are what they are, so who knows. I'm willing to impulse buy like a pervert for $200 bucks + 15, but not for 259 + 80 + 19.99. At least I know I have some self-restraint, even if my threshold is perversely high.

Anyways, here's some more Braid.

A friend of mine recently started a blog called Awesome or Sucks, which simply gives one word reviews to new albums - either it's awesome or it sucks. I figured if he can be that brief, I can do one or two sentence reviews of albums I've recently bought - because life is too short to overanalyze pop music.

This caught my attention while I was browsing various Terror EBM bands on amazon.com. I was basically in the mood for something harsh, aggressive and screamy, that wasn't mixed with the same frequency response as a vacuum cleaner and that didn't have vocals that were processed with a deep, rapid chorus effect making it sound like it was underwater (don't do this, it sucks!!!). Nurzery [rhymes] delivered. The production is decent, the song structure doesn't fall on its ass and there's not a single song that sucks on this album - what more could I ask for from the genre? Rated: Awesome.