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Ratchet and Clank: A Crack in Time Offers New Gameplay Mechanic
Ars Technica has a great look at the latest installment in the Ratchet and Clank series, "A Crack in Time." Along with the great looking graphics and same great gameplay, A Crack in Time offers a brand new game mechanic: "time pads." Time pads allow you to make a copy of yourself and move through a series of action, then shift back to "real time" and interact with your past self. "It's a game mechanic that's hard to describe in words, and wrapping your head around it inside the game isn't much easier when it's first described with an example or two. You have to play with it and bend time to your will before you see just how ingenious the whole thing is. The puzzles begin simply and grow harder as the game moves on. The use of time is done very well and elevates what we've played of the game from another platforming experience to something truly special."
In Chronotron, you create a time paradox and have to restart the level.
Just once I'd like someone to call me 'Sir' without adding 'You're making a scene.'
Actually, there have been flash games based on this concept for ages. But apparently they aren't "proper" games...
See http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/439647 for a good example.
Penguins can be fascists too
Prince of Persia Sands of Time was the first game on a mainstream platform to have the go back in time because I made a mistake feature you describe, which is the main gameplay mechanic.
However Braid DOES have the "new gameplay mechanic", it's when you create a shadow of yourself to help you get through a level, not the feature of rewinding and fast forwarding.
And if you want to get into a pissing match of "xy did it first!" then yes, the shadow mechanic has been in flash games long before anything else.
Blinx had several different ways of interacting with time (FF, REW, and so on) that could be used on demand. It's Achron that's really looking cool in the time-front.
Cursor x 10 is a little different in that you don't get to choose when it resets, and cursors can't directly interact, but the basic concept has been used by plenty of games. Movies did it first anyway, such as Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, when he reminds himself to hide the keys or setup the bucket later and then the result occurs (although they did create a few paradoxes in that film).
You fail at reading comprehension.
Braid did far more than just rewind - which was one of its constant mechanics. Other features include:
Some levels the direction of time of everything else in the world depends on the direction you walk.
Some levels featured entities that were 'immune' to time rewind
Some levels featured the interactive 'shadow'
Some levels combined multiple of the above
SPOILER:
An example of this is one level where you actually let an enemy fall onto you, so that you 'die' and the enemy bounces off your head, then you rewind and play it forwards, again, this time jumping on the head of the enemy as it bounces off your 'shadow' previous self, to reach a high platform.
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MaineCoon beat me to it, but here's a video of Braid's World 5 in action.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
Yes: ChronoTron.
I loved this game. They even accounted for Paradoxes. But, the concept does get a bit old when you beat you head on a puzzle trying to plan "x" far ahead in order to complete the puzzle. (coolest effect - using "pause time" in one loop, then seeing it get used in a later loop)
So, yeah. Not so new.
And so now, two games that might make me want to buy a PS3. Hmmm.. Still not worth it.
But then, I bought a Xbox 360 for one game: Fable 2. So, what do I know about worthwhile purchases.?
It's not exactly Interacting with yourself in the past, but its the first game I can recall that had this type of gameplay. It came out long before Chronotron, features the same puzzle elements as Chronotron, and was originally in Japanese.
Woosh
It's entirely possible to beat Megaman 2 without dying.
The boss in Wily stage 4 is difficult to beat without dying (you cannot waste a single crash bomb), but it can be done. (Here is a video showing how).