I agree (although the word "ever" might be too strong).

I played the demo last night and it just seemed like a complete rip-off of a Super Mario Bros. game with some puzzle elements added. No way am I paying 15 bucks for that. Seemed like more of a $5 game.

But I will admit that it looks rather nice and I loved the music playing in the background.

There are obviously some things in the game that pay homage to SMB, but really, the gameplay is not at all similar. SMB has no time manipulation and is not puzzle-centric.

But Braid has piranha plants and goomba-like creatures. So it's the same.

Yeah, this is a puzzle game, you have to really pay attention to what you are doing.

Having just got my 360 back yesterday I finally got to try out a couple of the XBLA games I've missed. No Braid yet, but I did try:

Geometry Wars 2: I wasn't a huge fan of the first and this seems like more of the same from the demo. I wish they let you try out the other modes. I did manage a high enough score to pass someone here on my friends list on my first attempt. Decker, maybe?

Go Go Breaksteady: This seemed pretty cool. Boom Boom Rocket meets Zuma. Even the easy level seemed pretty difficult. I liked it though.

Yeah, Geometry Wars 2 is nothing like Geometry Wars save for the demo mode and Evolved mode. The other 4 modes are quite different and extremely entertaining.

GW2 is pretty damn awesome I think. The gameplay mechanic of collecting geoms to raise your score multiplier is really good I think. Also I like the fact you don't lose your multiplier when you die. One of the flaws of the original game is that if you're fairly far into the game with a big multiplier and you died, then your rate of scoring goes down to shit. So I'd often find myself in a situation were I was quite far in with 4 or so lives left, but I'd die and lose my multiplier, and the next 5 minutes or so would be spent desperately trying to stay alive without really getting any score reward for it.

Anyway, might be worth taking the plunge especially if you have someone to play coop with. Like Mario Galaxy, this is also a game that works really well with players of differing skill levels. This is because the coop mode includes a feature where one player can shoot and the other can move. A lot of fun!

One nice thing about 360voice.com is that it can give you feedback on any XBLA game within 24 hours of its release so that you can see if it's a hit or a flop. Braid is a....HIT. Yesterday, 2122 people played the full game. With XBLA games, the launch day is almost always the most played so it can give you a really good idea on the purchase rate. Yeah, that's not a totally random sample but it can give you an idea. For comparison, 4283 played GW2 on launch, 998 played Commando 3 on it's biggest day (launch of the SFII beta, not launch day), 614 played Assault Heroes 2, 1337 (ironicly :) ) played SOULCALIBUR at it's launch day, 1408 played the very expensive Penny Arcade game and a whopping 44 ponied up for Double D Dodgeball. By that measure, you have to figure Braid did very well even with it's high price.

Not bad but you have to remember it only tracks people that sign up on the site, not everyone with a Live account.

Reading is FUNdamental.

My point is that it's not a completely accurate picture, (for example, I suspect that the family-oriented games like Shrek & Roll or Sea Life Safari probably have higher attach rates than are indicated here), but otherwise it should be fairly accurate in showing which games are hits (GW2) or flops (Double-D Dodgeball) based on the number of members who bought the game and played on the first day of release.

Finished Braid yesterday and really enjoyed it. Now I'm working on getting (game collectibles spoiler).

While I think the story writing/text is lackluster, the ideas presented are refreshing and pretty great. The ending is very clever and really makes you think about how all of the pieces of the story and time tie into the bigger picture.

I'm enjoying Braid a lot. The puzzles remind me of Zack and Wiki, except with out the horrible death and restarts from the beginning for doing seemingly innocuous activities.

Love the art style too, but I would like to see more variety in enemies.

Fable II Pub Games are also coming out next week for 800MSP. You can get them for free if you pre-order the game from GameStop, Amazon, Best Buy, and a few other places.

I pre-ordered the collector's edition today from GameStop and they gave me a card that has the download code on it, which will become active next Wednesday.

Braid is really cool. Some of those pieces though are giving me a headache. I'm hoping I can work them out and not turn to a walkthrough.

If you have kids do what I'm doing.
I'm giving the controller to my 8 years old daughter and she's showing me how to get some of the puzzles pieces. It's really interesting how different the minds of a 33 year old male and a 8 year female work. :)
She usually gets one or two pieces and that opens my mind and then I'm able to figure it out some puzzles.
Last night I was really proud of myself for figuring out one of them.

Thanks for the head's up. Anyone who actually pays for Pub Games is a fool. I'll pre-order this weekend. What's in the collector's edition of that game?

Took a deep breath and purchased Braid. Don't regret it one bit but, damn(!), I'm having a fun/frustrating time figuring out some of these puzzles. A good diversion between GW2 and COD4.

There ya go.

Hmmm, pre-order. get the code in a week. cancel.

I went to preorder Fable 2 from Amazon and discovered that they are also offering a Fallout 3 "Survival Edition" that includes a life-size PipBoy. I don't normally go in for collectibles, but that is so tempting ...

I saw that too - but at over 100% more expensive than the regular edition? Crazy.

Not interested in Fable II myself. Is there talk of how good these games will be as stand-alone? I know you're supposed to be able to import money from the Pub games to Fable II... I wonder if they're satisfying for more than that?

Because I ain't above doing what you describe above.

Not sure - but Fable 2 is going to be cool :)

Typically, there's some sort of penalty or rule associated with this sort of deal. For example, you have to returned the sealed code, that sort of thing.

Pixy has 21M in Deadline on GW2. That's got to be a misprint...