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Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons Review for Xbox 360

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons Review for Xbox 360

Two Brothers, One Controller

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons must be one of the quietest games ever made.

There’s no shooting, no explosions, and no car chases, just two brothers exploring a fantasy world on a quest to cure their sick father. There is dialogue, but it all takes place in a fictional tongue, and it’s not subtitled–the most you can do is read the characters’ body language, interpreting it the way you’d interpret a cutscene in a LEGO game. The characters don’t even have names. And there’s music, but it consists largely of basic chord movements, evoking peacefulness at some moments and tension at others.

In a lesser game, all of this would amount to boredom. But even after limiting themselves this way, Starbreeze Studios and Swedish film director Josef Fares managed to create a captivating and surprisingly touching experience. Brothers is mentally stimulating, emotionally engaging, and artistically innovative–an example of video gaming at its best.

Much of the game’s enchanting nature comes from its unique gameplay premise. While the plot would seem to lend itself to co-op play–how many actual pairs of brothers have passed the time playing video games together?– this is a single-player game. From an overhead view, you are in charge of guiding both brothers on their paths through an extensive series of puzzles and the occasional enemy encounter. There’s nothing else quite like it, but the closest comparison I can come up with is this: It’s Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light , with no guns, played in Ms. Splosion Man’s “2 Girls 1 Controller” mode.

To make this manageable, the developers kept the controls incredibly simple. Each joystick controls a brother, the trigger buttons make the brothers interact with the world (everything from picking guards’ pockets to lifting up sheep), and the bumpers rotate the camera. That’s it.

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons Screenshot

But this can be deviously tricky. For whatever reason, even if you’ve spent a lot of time with a controller in your hand, you will probably have trouble doing two completely different things at once. In any other game, your hands work together to make a character do something, but here they have to work independently, as if you had two brains.

The puzzles may not be overly elaborate, but they do require a certain amount of coordination; you might need to have one brother run on a hamster wheel while another crosses a bridge or make the brothers work together to move a bulky object through narrow corridors. (If you’ve ever navigated a couch or mattress through tight turns while moving, your experience will come in handy here.) At first, it’s easy to become frustrated and blame the game for your limitations. But in the end, it turns out they are, in fact, your limitations, and you master the art of moving a separate character with each hand. What was initially infuriating becomes soothing.

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons Screenshot

This unique gameplay setup is enough to make Brothers a compelling game. But its innovative storytelling completes the package.

It first hit home for me that I was playing something special in one of the game’s earliest scenes. I was guiding the brothers along, solving puzzles as I went–one kid pulls a lever, the other climbs a rope, and so on–when I came across an ogre. The ogre was in tears. He spoke to the brothers in the game’s language, and then he began helping the brothers make their way through the world, tossing them to high platforms and even using his limbs to make a bridge.

It was an oddly gentle and kind thing for an ogre to do, and as the story unfolded, it became clear exactly why he was doing it. With no words at all–at least no words that I could understand–the game told an interesting and beautiful tale wrapped inside the larger adventure on which the brothers had embarked.

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons Screenshot

Graphically, Brothers is nice for a downloadable title–the limits of the platform do shine through with some aliasing and other minor problems, but all of the environments and animations are lovingly crafted. The developers did a good job of offering a wide variety of environments without making the game feel disjointed as well. It’s very easy to lose yourself in the colorful world on offer here.

If there’s a downside to this game, it’s that there isn’t nearly enough of it: It’s over after four hours. There’s no need for any game to wear out its welcome, but this premise easily could have supported twice as much content, and the price point of $15 is a little steep for such a fleeting experience.

But if you’re as cheap as I am, you’ll probably wait for a sale anyway. The simple fact is that Brothers is an amazing experience, filled with clever little challenges, an eerily quiet ambiance, and emotionally deep stories. Not many games have all of that at once, and you’d be doing yourself a disservice by skipping this one.

RATING OUT OF 5 RATING DESCRIPTION 4.0 Graphics
It’s a downloadable game, but all of the imagery is well-crafted and colorful. 4.5 Control
It’s hard to control two brothers at once, but that’s a deliberate part of the game. 4.0 Music / Sound FX / Voice Acting
The gentle music complements the game well, and the fictional language is interesting. 3.5 Play Value
Four hours is definitely on the short side, but those four hours are incredible. 4.2 Overall Rating – Great
Not an average. See Rating legend below for a final score breakdown.

Review Rating Legend
0.1 – 1.9 = Avoid 2.5 – 2.9 = Average 3.5 – 3.9 = Good 4.5 – 4.9 = Must Buy
2.0 – 2.4 = Poor 3.0 – 3.4 = Fair 4.0 – 4.4 = Great 5.0 = The Best

Game Features:

  • Guide two brothers on an epic fairy tale journey from visionary Swedish film director Josef Fares and top-tier developer Starbreeze Studios.
  • Control both brothers at once as you experience co-op play in single player mode, like never before.
  • Solve puzzles, explore the varied locations, and fight boss battles, controlling one brother with each thumb stick.
  • This is one journey you will never forget.

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