The Witness is not VR, but I'm talking about it anyway.

I'm too stupid to enjoy The Witness.

I know I said this would be all Virtual Reality-y, but I have to get this off my chest.  After reading rave reviews about Johnathan Blow's new game, and having read equally glowing reviews about Braid (his previous game) back in the day, I decided to plunk down $40 for this one.  And boy howdy, are those reviews sort of spot on.

First off, let's talk a little about Braid.  I loved the idea when it came out.  A Mario-ish side scrolling platformer, with a "rewind time" mechanic.  You know, kinda like Blinx.  Everyone remembers Blinx.  Anyway, really quickly into Braid, I got stuck in some kind of puzzle.  I don't remember the details, but I'm sure I had to jump over some shit and reverse time and then whatever.  Either way, I couldn't figure it out.  The game is still installed on my still working XBOX 360, and the save game is still at that same point.  Sure, I could have gone online and read a walkthrough, but that would ruin the fun.  I decided it would be far more fun to just never play the stupid thing ever again.  More importantly, I knew that if I couldn't figure out that fairly early puzzle, I'd certainly never figure out the ones after that.  Same thing happened with Fez.  As soon as it got confusing and required real thought, I was out.  Strangely enough, I did finish the first Portal game, but gave up on the second one when I got stuck.  I had a job and many (two) hobbies.  I didn't have time to sit around and figure stuff out.  Anyway, I'm older, more mature, smarter, and more patient now.

Except, it turns out, I'm not.

The Witness is gorgeous.  The gist of the game is that you walk around this beautiful island and solve maze puzzles.  Not mazes like you walk around in (although I'm pretty sure I spotted something like that when I was wandering), but like, actual move a dot from a circle to another circle type mazes. And there are varying rulesets to each maze.  The first few are pretty easy, and then the game just turns you loose to figure out the rest of it.  When you figure out a puzzle or group of puzzles, the game sometimes lights up a wire to guide you to another, previously inaccessible puzzle.  And sometimes it doesn't do shit.  100% of the time (so far), the reward for solving the puzzle is...fucking more puzzles.  If you find a puzzle that is too difficult for you to figure out, you have free roam of the island to discover other puzzles.

So, I'm pretty early on, and this freedom is seriously stressing me out.  I like (and complete) games like Uncharted and Grand Theft Auto because I'm being guided to what I'm supposed to do next.  A lot of people like open-ended games, but I guess I'm weird, because I like knowing what the fuck I'm supposed to do.  I'm sure the game is a triumph and makes you think and all that, but I just don't think it's for me.  I'm going to try to come back to it a few more times, but I already get the feeling that I just drew myself a maze puzzle between me and $40 worth of enjoyment that I'll never solve.

Highly recommended.