The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom likely hit the Xbox Live Arcade with little to no fanfare from gamers. Have you even heard of this game at all? Well, I should slap you if you haven’t, because you should. Mr. Winterbottom hit Xbox Live on Feb. 17th amidst loads of Dante’s Inferno hoop-lah and the release of Bioshock 2. You would be surprised to know that since it’s been out the ratings for The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom beat out the recently released Alien vs. Predator and are right up there with reviews of Bioshock 2. These are the type of titles hitting store shelves in a heavy release month, but I say we need to let The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom get all the praise it deserves.

  I’ll go ahead and get the elephant standing in the room out of the way first by mentioning Winterbottom’s similar gameplay elements to it’s twisted counterpart “Braid”. I happen to be in a sticky situation having walked into review P.B. Winterbottom but already playing and reviewing the other time twisting puzzler game for the PSN. The similarities between them are there, I won’t fault you that, but after the time bending aspect is taken out of the equation, both games stand on their own independently. The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom surprisingly is the victor here.

In the game, you play as the title character, P. B. Winterbottom. After I saw Mr. Winterbottom for the first time, I seriously thought they modeled the character after Danny Devito as the Penguin in Batman Returns. I was just waiting for him to jump and say his trademarked “meh hah heh heh!” laugh as he gathered up pie (which is Winterbottom’s main goal in life). Winterbottom is a sucker for a good pie (as am I), and will eat every single pie in the world, no matter what the cost. This leads to an opening of a massive time vortex funnel on a clock face, with Winterbottom still following the intoxicating pie scent into it. Yeah, so let’s get this straight. You play a weird Penguin-type character based in the 1920’s era that steals pie, can bend the time space continuum, creates replicas of himself to get more pie, and loves to beat himself senseless? Okay, so the story doesn’t really make sense here, but do you really need a story other than to just go out and collect pie? I think not.

The world you play in is as if its been ran through a distorted 1920’s movie camera. The style and charm The Odd Gentlemen put into the game seeps out like pie stuffing. I haven’t felt so wrapped up in a puzzle game like this one that I actually wanted to just put the controller down, look at each intricate detail of a level, and listen to the incredibly hypnotic musical score of a game. The game just hits the 1920’s silent film diorama feel out of the park.

By pressing and holding the right trigger down, you activate the “record” action of the game. Recording Winterbottom’s actions looks like an old movie projector being spun up, with it giving you the ability to record your actions, play them back in continuous loops, and creating replicas of yourself to collect pies.

The gameplay of P.B. Winterbottom is varied, but really doesn’t get too complicated. The game presents new puzzles and new strategies as you progress, then ultimately teaches you the steps needed to accomplish them. As you move deeper into the game, you will really only need to recall the last couple of strategies to beat each stage. This type of gameplay element for P.B. Winterbottom was a refreshing change from other puzzle games I’ve played. This meant there was no need to go back to the beginning of the game and relearn a technique I might have forgotten.

As with all puzzle games I play, I did want to shove my controller through the TV. P.B. Winterbottom is a puzzle platformer, I expected that, but at times the difficulty sharply increases throughout the game. P.B. Winterbottom does push the difficulty of the puzzles later in the game, but instead of getting its puzzling aspects and confusion from which older tactic to try, you merely have to figure it out from the last two or three you learned.

With about 51 levels of frustrating diorama goodness found in P.B. Winterbottom, I still clamored for more. This is more than I can say about Braid. I don’t know why these two games were ever compared to each other. They are similar, but if I had to pick between the two, P.B. Winterbottom is stylish, fun, and gets my slice of pie every time.

I highly suggest you pick up The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom on the Xbox Live Arcade for 800 MS points.

[A download code of the game was provided by the publisher for review purposes.]