Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons
This is one of the games that were free for PSN Plus accounts this month, and one that has been on my wishlist recently. Boy, indie gamemakers are definitely getting it right where many triple A companies are not.
The story is very simple: it takes the basic structure of a regular Hero's Journey and applies it for two people. Like in Journey, ICO and Shadow of the Colossus, the story has little to no dialogues. I mean, it does have dialogues, but they're spoken in a gibberish language similar to the one used in The Sims. In the beginning of the game, this bothered me a little, but as the game progressed, I ended up forgetting this. By the middle of the game, I once again began to think on how hard it is to tell a good story without the use of any dialogues, but I think that the main point here was the strengthening of the bonds between the two brothers as they traveled across the world to find the remedy for their father.
[Spoiler (click to open)]Because the story is rather simple and basically follows the Hero's Journey path, it also ended up having quite of a predictable ending, which isn't necessarily a bad thing: the game begins with the younger brother alone in front of his mother's tomb (which already led me to think "wait, if the game's name is A Tale of Two Sons and the other brother is not there... OH MY GOD, HE'S GONNA DIE IN THE END, ISN'T HE?") and ends with the younger brother standing beside his father in front of both his mother and his brother's tomb. It's funny how I already knew that one of them was going to die, but I still cried when the older brother died. In this part of the game, when you take control of the younger brother once again, whenever you try to use the older brother's commands, the boy falls in the floor and cries his brother's name.
After you finished the burial, a bird takes you back home and you realize that in spite of only being able to control the younger brother, you can use the older brother's controls and use his abilities. And when the father is paying his respects for the fallen ones, I cried once again. I don't really think I'll ever be strong enough to endure a father's (or a mother's) suffering and I will never be able to tell exactly WHY.
Regarding the game itself, I was actually surprised with the fact that the controls are not bad at all. I did have trouble with the cameras in some moments of the game, but nothing that made me throw the controller against the wall in rage. This game's concept is one of the most interesting I have seen so far, and by the end of the game you understand why the game was meant to play in a single controller instead of being 100% two players co-op. The character's model design was also bugging me a little when I started the game, but then I realized that the most important things are expressed with gestures rather than words and facial expressions, and I found this very charming. Nowadays pretty much all 3D games take advantage of the gaming processors to build realistic facial expressions, but the producers of Brothers managed to put all the meaning they wanted without having to appeal to that.
I must also say that the soundtrack surprised me. It was quite better than I had expected, with just the right music style to the right moments. The main theme song is absolutely gorgeous, as well as most of the songs that are played in the "apotheosis" moments.
There is one thing that I didn't like AT ALL in the game though: the PS3 version has several moments of lag and slowdown, not to mention loading times. For a console that is supposed to have a lot of processing power, there was no real reason for the slowdown times, specially considering that it uses Unreal Engine. Maybe the port was badly implemented? I don't know if this also happens on the PC version. It's a good thing that they didn't happen THAT frequently, so they didn't get in the way of my gameplay.
In summary, this game is definitely worth buying (with the soundtrack, if possible). I'm glad I got it for free from PSN, but if I didn't, I wouldn't regret buying it for the PC.
The story is very simple: it takes the basic structure of a regular Hero's Journey and applies it for two people. Like in Journey, ICO and Shadow of the Colossus, the story has little to no dialogues. I mean, it does have dialogues, but they're spoken in a gibberish language similar to the one used in The Sims. In the beginning of the game, this bothered me a little, but as the game progressed, I ended up forgetting this. By the middle of the game, I once again began to think on how hard it is to tell a good story without the use of any dialogues, but I think that the main point here was the strengthening of the bonds between the two brothers as they traveled across the world to find the remedy for their father.
[Spoiler (click to open)]Because the story is rather simple and basically follows the Hero's Journey path, it also ended up having quite of a predictable ending, which isn't necessarily a bad thing: the game begins with the younger brother alone in front of his mother's tomb (which already led me to think "wait, if the game's name is A Tale of Two Sons and the other brother is not there... OH MY GOD, HE'S GONNA DIE IN THE END, ISN'T HE?") and ends with the younger brother standing beside his father in front of both his mother and his brother's tomb. It's funny how I already knew that one of them was going to die, but I still cried when the older brother died. In this part of the game, when you take control of the younger brother once again, whenever you try to use the older brother's commands, the boy falls in the floor and cries his brother's name.
After you finished the burial, a bird takes you back home and you realize that in spite of only being able to control the younger brother, you can use the older brother's controls and use his abilities. And when the father is paying his respects for the fallen ones, I cried once again. I don't really think I'll ever be strong enough to endure a father's (or a mother's) suffering and I will never be able to tell exactly WHY.
Regarding the game itself, I was actually surprised with the fact that the controls are not bad at all. I did have trouble with the cameras in some moments of the game, but nothing that made me throw the controller against the wall in rage. This game's concept is one of the most interesting I have seen so far, and by the end of the game you understand why the game was meant to play in a single controller instead of being 100% two players co-op. The character's model design was also bugging me a little when I started the game, but then I realized that the most important things are expressed with gestures rather than words and facial expressions, and I found this very charming. Nowadays pretty much all 3D games take advantage of the gaming processors to build realistic facial expressions, but the producers of Brothers managed to put all the meaning they wanted without having to appeal to that.
I must also say that the soundtrack surprised me. It was quite better than I had expected, with just the right music style to the right moments. The main theme song is absolutely gorgeous, as well as most of the songs that are played in the "apotheosis" moments.
There is one thing that I didn't like AT ALL in the game though: the PS3 version has several moments of lag and slowdown, not to mention loading times. For a console that is supposed to have a lot of processing power, there was no real reason for the slowdown times, specially considering that it uses Unreal Engine. Maybe the port was badly implemented? I don't know if this also happens on the PC version. It's a good thing that they didn't happen THAT frequently, so they didn't get in the way of my gameplay.
In summary, this game is definitely worth buying (with the soundtrack, if possible). I'm glad I got it for free from PSN, but if I didn't, I wouldn't regret buying it for the PC.