HomePublisher2KThe Misadventures of P.B. WinterBottom - Xbox Live Arcade Review

The Misadventures of P.B. WinterBottom – Xbox Live Arcade Review

The Misadventures of P.B. WinterBottom
Publisher: 2K Play
Developer: The Odd Gentlemen
Platforms: Xbox 360 
Release Date: February 17th, 2010

Story
“Create your own paradox … for the love of pie. Enter a macabre and comical silent world filled with mischief, time travel and delicious pie in The Misadventures of P. B. Winterbottom. Record yourself and harness your time-bending abilities to cooperate, compete against, and disrupt your past, present, and future selves. Winterbottom’s debut misadventures present a whimsical spin on the notions of time, space, and play. Join Winterbottom as he travels through over 75 “movie” levels, causing mischief and mayhem in pursuit of the mysterious and elusive Chronoberry Pie on his spectacular journey through space-time.” [via Xbox.com]

You play as P.B. WinterBottom, who does everything possible to get his hands on delicious pies and doesn’t care who he hurts to get them. The game is a story of love, deceit, pain, and forgiveness. Ok, that last bit was a lie. It is actually a story about a guy who wants the pie of his life, but is instead tricked into a time paradox where he finds out all the wrongs he has done and the pains he has put onto others. He then goes back and uses his new paradox creating powers to fix all the wrongs he has done and the people forgive him (technically, he goes back in time and no one even knew anything was wrong; like I said ‘Paradox’!). Hey look at that, I made the story about love, deceit, pain, and forgiveness.

The funny thing is, that description says you are causing mischief and mayhem with your clones, but after the opening (in which you are breaking everything) you actually go back and fix everything while trying to get the elusive Chronoberry Pie. (By the way, ‘chrono’ means time, so the Pie is a TimeBerry Pie. It gives you all your powers so that you can fix what you have broken).

Will you be able to fix your wrongs and finally get your hands on that Chronoberry Pie?

 

Gameplay
The controls are pretty straight forward, even if the game is not. Move with the joystick, and record yourself with the right trigger. You can jump with A, float by holding A, and whack things with X. Like I said, straight forward.

This however is where the ‘straightforwardness’ ends; literally since you actually go back in time, which is backwards not forward. You must collect all the pies on a stage to continue and this is no easy task. Use your clones you create to help you as you attempt and fail (many, many times) in trying to get all the pies. More gameplay mechanics are introduced as you go along like switches that activate things, seesaws, and pies that you must collect in a certain order within a time limit. There are many other obstacles in your way while collecting your pies, but I don’t want to give all the surprises away.

There are over 75 levels in this platforming game for you to create time paradox’s in, and over 1,000,000 pies for you to collect (this is a made up number, but there are a lot of pies). You must collect them all and fix what you have done wrong in the future (that is not a typo by the way).

Audio

The background music has a very gloomy, old fashion feel. It probably has to do with the story, and how WinterBottom was very bad, and now he is fixing his mistakes.

The nicest effect would have to be the old timey recording sound, whenever you record yourself. The extra touch gives much more feeling to the game.

Achievements
A majority of the achievements are based in the extra ‘Bonus Shorts’ levels. These levels are harder than the story levels, and will require quick recording, and skimpy recording in order to get both medals for each level. Luckily, you don’t have to beat the time challenge and the recording challenge in the same run, but it will still be hard to get both medals in every single one. Good Luck!!

The Achievement List is:

  • Hungry Bottom – Complete the “Savory Salutations” movie level.
  • Ticking Bottom – Complete the “The Ticking Tarts” movie level.
  • Burnt Bottom – Complete the “Dangerously Delicious!” movie level.
  • Soggy Bottom – Complete the “Spelunking for Sweets” movie level.
  • Stuff Bottom – Complete all 5 movie levels.
  • Hot Pie Bottom – Steal 10 pies.
  • Thinking Bottom – Complete 10 recording challenges in the bonus shorts.
  • Smacked Bottom – Complete 10 time challenges in the bonus shorts.
  • Conservative Bottom – Complete 20 recording challenges in the bonus shorts.
  • Swift Bottom – Complete 20 time challenges in the bonus shorts.
  • Greedy Bottom – Complete all recording and time challenges in the bonus shorts.
  • Evil Bottom – Burn, smash, or erase 50 clones.

 

 

Overview
The misadventures of P.B. WinterBottom is a must buy for the puzzle aficionados. If you enjoyed the time bending antics of Braid, then you are going to love this game. Time travel and pie, what more could you want? I give The Misadventures of P.B. WinterBottom 10 Capsules out of 10.

10-0-capsules-out-of-10

Pros

  • Time travel and Pie! Hmmm!
  • Braid 1.5, though WinterBottom’s story is much more straightforward.
  • I’d pay $10 just to read the subtitles of each level! Those things were funny!

Cons

No cons, unless you want me to get real nitpicky. The game is well executed and it is priced just right. Unless you aren’t a fan of puzzle games, I’d suggest putting this on your buy list.

Optional

  • The game starts out easy, but becomes devilishly hard; it is amazing how hard it becomes. I’ve actually stopped and stared at the screen for 10 minutes trying to figure out how to do it. This could be a Pro or a Con depending on the readers skill level, and if they like a challenge or not.

 

Source
WinterBottom Website