Review Video:

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Man what a crazy week, my whole review schedule got all jacked up. First Blizzard emails me that I have access to the Closed Beta of Starcraft 2 then 2K Play emails me with a key to download The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom. If you’re like me, you knew next to nothing about this title. While playing through it, the only thing that came to mind was that it’s a black and white version of Braid. Make sure to check out my game-play footage in blazing HD at my other channel, ZeitgeistOther, and follow me on twitter to see what games I’m playing! Released on February 17th as a downloadable from Xbox-Live for 800 Microsoft Points, developed by The Odd Gentleman, this is The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom.

Unlike Braid, the story of The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom is very simple and doesn’t try to contain any hidden confusing messages. P.B. Winterbottom is a man with a big schnoz who just can’t get enough delicious and tart pies. For whatever reason, these pies are scattered throughout the town of Bakersburg and you’re platforming around trying to find them. The game begins with a tutorial level that both teaches you how to play, and sets up the story for the rest of the game. Basically, while you collect pies in the tutorial, a bunch of mishaps occur like setting the town on fire and stopping time. You are then sucked through a portal and are allowed to go back through time to correct your mischievous deeds… While still collecting more delicious pies.

The primary game is divided into 5 levels, each consisting of about 8 sub-levels. This should take you roughly 3 to 4 hours to complete as long as you don’t get stuck on any of the puzzles, though none of them are extremely difficult. The majority of your time will be spent on the Time and Recording challenges that you’ll gain access to after you complete each level. All of the content is single player, but there are leader boards associated with the challenge levels, and the people up there already have some pretty ridiculous scores. Being a puzzle game, the design in each level is very clever. Each new level presents a more challenging puzzle and every single one of them are really fun to play. The concept of the game is just silly and P.B. Winterbottom just looks hilarious as he runs across the screen.

If you haven’t figured it out by now, P.B. Winterbottom is a puzzle platformer. Like Braid, each level gives you access to a new game-play mechanic. Initially Winterbottom is just running and jumping while collecting his pies, but when things start to go awry, things get a bit more interesting. The basic mechanic used throughout each level is to record instances of yourself that loop and each level has a different constraint as to how many copies of yourself may exist at any given time. The 2nd level forces you to collect all of the pies in a matter of seconds, so you’ve got to get creative as to how to use your clones. The 3rd level contains blue pies that ONLY clones may collect. The 4th level involves creating clones on timers that all start from portals scattered throughout the level. Finally the 5th level puts you on a stage where pies are only visible when a timed spotlight is shined upon them. So you’ve got a pretty wide variety of levels and they are all extremely entertaining. They are just hard enough that when you get them right you’ll be proud of yourself for solving them.

Again, like in Braid, you’ll have a puzzle selector opens new areas as you defeat levels, and more importantly, lets you select the Time and Recording Challenges. Time Challenges have you collecting all of the pies in a certain time, and Recording Challenges limit you to a certain number of clones that you may use to do it. These are significantly more tricky than the regular puzzles, so get your thinking cap ready, you’re gonna need it!

Well what can I say, I was blown away by the presentation of P.B. Winterbottom. The graphics are cartoony and cute, but high res. For the most part, everything is black and white, but every now and then they’ll add a little color to emphasize some things. It kind of reminds me of the movie Sin City. Whenever you are recording your clones you’ll get an old-school film grain like you were watching filmstrips back in grade school. Hell what am I talking about, most of you who watch these videos probably don’t even know what that is.