Posted 3/1/2010 at 12:37 PM By Judgeman
The Good: Fantastic presentation and art direction, great music and game play.
The Bad: Some puzzles can be frustrating to figure out.
Summary: 2K Play and The Odd Gentlemen invite us into their strange and wonderful world to enjoy The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom on the Xbox LIVE Arcade. Does P.B. Winterbottom have what it takes to keep our attention, or is it just a bad slice of pie? Find out with our full review, After the Break!
Full Review:
Story:
In the Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom, you play as none other then the infamous P.B. Winterbottom. Who exactly is P.B. Winterbottom, you ask? Well, he is the notorious pie thief in the town of Bakerston. P.B. Winterbottom loves pie so much, that he is blissfully unaware of the consequences of his actions or the trouble he causes to get the pie. One day, he discovers the pie to end all pies, a pie made with Chronoberries! This pie causes P.B. Winterbottom to return in time to his previous pie stealing escapades and endows him with the power to create clones of himself. P.B. Winterbottom can now utilize past, present and future versions of himself in order to steal every last pie in Bakerston, and to finally get his hands on that Chronoberry pie!
Gameplay:
The game play aspect of The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom is simple enough. You must solve each puzzle by using your clones to grab all of the pies within a certain time limit. This sounds much easier then it is in reality. You can create only a certain number of clones, determined by the level. Each clone is created by recording your own actions. For instance, if you record yourself running from right to left, your clone will run from right to left, and then repeat the movement. As P.B. Winterbottom, you can jump and swing your trusty umbrella. Hitting your clones with your umbrella will cause them to fly across the screen. You can also set up your clones to swing their umbrella at you, if you want to send the original P.B. Winterbottom to another section of the level.
Each section of the game, or “short movie”, is broken up into levels that you must complete in order to finish. Each level then has it’s own rules and requirements that need to be met in order to solve the puzzle. The first short movie dubbed 'The Clocktower' has a timer that you must hit to reveal the hidden pies in the level. You then have a short amount of time to collect all of the pies to move on. Later in the movie, the pies must be collected in numerical order. Once the level is completed, you are shown a neat little loading screen then moved onto the next level.
The gameplay of the Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom is executed flawlessly. I never had one ounce of trouble in controlling Winterbottom or his clones. The difficulty is in solving the puzzles of each level. Each level does have several ways to solve each puzzle, there is no one “magic solution” that you must find, but I would still run into puzzles that would literally cause my brain to spasm and try to escape my skull - ouch! Thankfully, this is not a bad thing and it is refreshing to have a game that doesn’t try to hold your hand and help you solve things. It’s just that you will find some of these puzzles will require you to put down the controller and sleep on it until you think of a way that will work.
The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom also has challenge levels that are unlocked as you play through the game. These challenge levels rewards the player for solving the levels fast and with the least amount of clones. The hard part in these levels is to get the fastest time possible and using the least amount of clones, which I had a difficult time in doing. It’s a great way to try and beat the best time that you have on record. The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom supports leader boards for these challenges, so you can see how you match up to others over Xbox LIVE.
Graphics and Sound:
This is where The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom really won me over. The graphics themselves are fairly standard for a game on Xbox Live, but it’s the presentation that blew me away. The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom is presented in the format of a silent movie. The game is, for the most part, done in black and white with absolutely no voice-overs or sounds, other than the music that plays in each level. The story is told through loading screens with rhyming lines of text that tells what is happening to P.B. Winterbottom or the other denizens of Bakerston. The art direction was inspired by the work of Edward Gorey, who was well known for his particular macabre style of artwork. The Odd Gentlemen created a wonderful world to play in that is truly a unique looking experience.
The music of The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom really felt appropriate and never once felt repetitive. Whenever you created a clone of yourself, the sound of the film reel moving backwards with the on-screen visual of the film moving really worked well with the gameplay. I am a big fan of developers that do something different with presentation, and The Odd Gentlemen really hit a home run with this one.
Final Thoughts:
The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom is one of those unique games that comes along every once in a while that is a testament to the video game as art. The presentation of the game in itself was enough to lure me into the world of P.B. Winterbottom, but when you add challenging puzzles with intriguing game play, then you have yourself a solid game. Many will be quick to call it a Braid clone, but I would say that The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom has enough personality to stand on its own. The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom is available now on Xbox Live Arcade for the cost of 800 Microsoft Points.
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