The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom Review
06 May 2010 | By Greg Baronian
Always wonder what a Charlie Chaplin tie in game with pies would be? Well wonder no more! (PC)
This year has been the year for smaller titles. It seems like every week I am being bombarded with another surprise gem. Most recently it was Lead and Gold and now The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom surprises and impresses. The best way to describe it is to think of it as Braid mixed with a 1920's classic black and white film. Not only is the game fun and challenging but it does some amazing things with its art direction and presentation.
Before we get into the dirty details of this review a little run down of what The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom is all about. The game is a puzzler through and through, and like Braid you get the power of time control. You use this power in conjunction with clones to capture pies in each stage.
So now that you know what I am talking about we can start. Visually the game is utterly stunning, everything is black and white except for the pies and it's done in this very classic European art style that reminds me of both Tin Tin and for you more youthful readers The Professor Layton games.
The outcome is fantastic, without an ounce of adventuring the game is able to portray a whole whimsical city using shadowed characters or backdrops and exaggerated buildings to make each level an enthralling romp.
The Presentation of the story and even the levels themselves is also another marquee aspect of the game. The humorous story is told like a story book mixed with an old movie. Each time you complete a puzzle you learn more and more about what's happening in the town. The game has a lot of great writing in it as well, some of the little story slides are reminiscent of Dr Sues and the bits of dialog you get in each level are always funny or helpful.
The sound department is just as spot on, while there isn't any dialog to be heard the music and sound effects compliment the game perfectly. It is a statement that cannot be repeated enough when discussing this title, the visual and sound flair, mixed with the style make it stand out against all other downloadable games this year, it truly is that amazing.
The story of the game is a rather clever one. You play P.B. Winterbottom a man who is obsessed with pies, at the start of the game you have just stolen a massive pile of pies from the towns people but one thing leads to another and you lose all of them. Along the way you also mess up the towns clock turning everything on its head as the game tells you, last call never ends and the dogs never go on their night walk to relieve themselves.
P.B. Winterbottom of course only cares about getting his pies back and his portly appearance and long top hat make him a character you'll love, but also hate. However, a puzzler can't be a good game without good gameplay and like everything else in The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom the game doesn't disappoint.
As I stated before, the game is all about getting back pies. Each level is a more elaborate set of challenges that forces you to get really creative with the game mechanics at your disposal. There are two major powers available to P.B. Winterbottom. The first is that each level will give you a set of clones that you can make, you can use these clones for simple tasks like stacking them to reach a higher platform, hitting them to get something far away or getting them to stand on a switch.
However the real meat and fun of the game comes when you combine it with P.B. Winterbottom's other power. His other power is the ability to stop time and record movements for a clone. So you can get a clone to walk across the map and jump on a see-saw so that you can get to another location.
The puzzles themselves can be tough but their also a lot of fun to figure out. You'll be throwing clones of yourself off of ledges so that they can launch other clones up to activate some other part of the level so you yourself can gather up the pie. It really makes you sit down, look at what you have around you, and what you need to get, and then figure out a game plan. It's addictive and the game has a lot of room for creativity, there is no "right" way to complete a puzzle, if you can figure out a way to make it work then try it.
If I was to point out any problems with The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom I would have to say that its difficulty is its only drawback. For veterans of the puzzle genre you'll find yourself enjoying a tough by compelling game. However for those with less experience you may find the difficulty curve a little too steep. The game gets pretty tough and elaborate rather quickly, but the feeling of triumph after figuring out a particularly hard puzzle leaves you feeling elated.
Before we get into the dirty details of this review a little run down of what The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom is all about. The game is a puzzler through and through, and like Braid you get the power of time control. You use this power in conjunction with clones to capture pies in each stage.
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| The Many... clones of P.B. Winterbottom | The story is told through these film like slide shows. |
So now that you know what I am talking about we can start. Visually the game is utterly stunning, everything is black and white except for the pies and it's done in this very classic European art style that reminds me of both Tin Tin and for you more youthful readers The Professor Layton games.
The outcome is fantastic, without an ounce of adventuring the game is able to portray a whole whimsical city using shadowed characters or backdrops and exaggerated buildings to make each level an enthralling romp.
The Presentation of the story and even the levels themselves is also another marquee aspect of the game. The humorous story is told like a story book mixed with an old movie. Each time you complete a puzzle you learn more and more about what's happening in the town. The game has a lot of great writing in it as well, some of the little story slides are reminiscent of Dr Sues and the bits of dialog you get in each level are always funny or helpful.
The sound department is just as spot on, while there isn't any dialog to be heard the music and sound effects compliment the game perfectly. It is a statement that cannot be repeated enough when discussing this title, the visual and sound flair, mixed with the style make it stand out against all other downloadable games this year, it truly is that amazing.
The story of the game is a rather clever one. You play P.B. Winterbottom a man who is obsessed with pies, at the start of the game you have just stolen a massive pile of pies from the towns people but one thing leads to another and you lose all of them. Along the way you also mess up the towns clock turning everything on its head as the game tells you, last call never ends and the dogs never go on their night walk to relieve themselves.
P.B. Winterbottom of course only cares about getting his pies back and his portly appearance and long top hat make him a character you'll love, but also hate. However, a puzzler can't be a good game without good gameplay and like everything else in The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom the game doesn't disappoint.
As I stated before, the game is all about getting back pies. Each level is a more elaborate set of challenges that forces you to get really creative with the game mechanics at your disposal. There are two major powers available to P.B. Winterbottom. The first is that each level will give you a set of clones that you can make, you can use these clones for simple tasks like stacking them to reach a higher platform, hitting them to get something far away or getting them to stand on a switch.
However the real meat and fun of the game comes when you combine it with P.B. Winterbottom's other power. His other power is the ability to stop time and record movements for a clone. So you can get a clone to walk across the map and jump on a see-saw so that you can get to another location.
The puzzles themselves can be tough but their also a lot of fun to figure out. You'll be throwing clones of yourself off of ledges so that they can launch other clones up to activate some other part of the level so you yourself can gather up the pie. It really makes you sit down, look at what you have around you, and what you need to get, and then figure out a game plan. It's addictive and the game has a lot of room for creativity, there is no "right" way to complete a puzzle, if you can figure out a way to make it work then try it.
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| As you can see threes company. | Could this be the end of P.B. Winterbottom?! |
If I was to point out any problems with The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom I would have to say that its difficulty is its only drawback. For veterans of the puzzle genre you'll find yourself enjoying a tough by compelling game. However for those with less experience you may find the difficulty curve a little too steep. The game gets pretty tough and elaborate rather quickly, but the feeling of triumph after figuring out a particularly hard puzzle leaves you feeling elated.
THE MISADVENTURES OF P.B. WINTERBOTTOM VERDICT
There isn’t much else to say about this title. It’s a Masterpiece in my eyes and I rarely use that term. There is a quality about the game that sucks you into the world and expels a sense of magic. It felt a lot like when a new Secret of Monkey Island would come out (in the 90’s not the new ones), the feel that you were playing something special. The only proper way to end this review is to say that in a year that is being described as the greatest in gaming history, The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom stands with every other stellar title released so far.
TOP GAME MOMENT
Running at the start of the game with a pile of pies while the world around me morphs.
