Mac|Life has posted a new review of Braid. Developed by Jonathan Blow and distributed for Macs by Hothead Games, the unique puzzle title allows players to manipulate the flow of time as they quest to rescue the Princess. Mac|Life gave the game a score of 5 out of 5.

From the review:

Designed by Jonathan Blow with artwork by David Hellman, Braid took Xbox Live by storm in 2008, winning numerous awards from gaming magazines. It was later ported to Windows, and Hothead Games brought it to the Mac. The puzzles and story are the same, and the Mac’s keyboard controls couldn’t be simpler: arrow keys to move, the space bar to jump, and the Shift key to rewind time.

That rewinding-time mechanism is the game’s foundation. Each world starts by introducing a time-manipulation ability that you use in the world’s levels to collect inconveniently located puzzle pieces. The puzzle pieces are hard to get to, and figuring out how to access them can keep you confused for hours. Luckily, you don’t have to restart a level if you die or just screw it up somehow--thanks to the time-manipulation tricks, just rewind to a point before disaster and try again. The soothing music and the sense of satisfaction you get when a particularly tricky problem finally presents its solution kept our blood pressure low enough to keep playing--for the most part, anyway.

You can continue on to the next level without collecting every puzzle piece, and return later on to a level that’s got you stuck. But you do have to find all 60 puzzle pieces in Worlds 2 through 6 to unlock the final level, World 1. Why are they out of order? That has to do with the game’s enigmatic story line, which deals with love and loss, forgiveness and redemption, and possibly the creation of the atom bomb (seriously)

Mac|Life: Braid Review

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