[Perry] Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons

So yeah, I know. This is a double dose of gaming goodness, but I recently completed this game and thought it might appeal to some of you out there.

Brothers begins with two sons realizing that their father is sick. They are told that he CAN be cured…but the journey to retrieve said curative will be long and dangerous.

The brothers set off, as good sons would, in order to find what’s needed to make their father well.

Brothers is touted as a “single-player coop” experience. And that strange description actually does the game justice.

The gimmick is that you control each brother at the same time using the two analog sticks. The left stick controls the older brother and the right stick controls the younger brother.

You can interact with the environment with each brother by pulling on the left or the right triggers.

So, if your brain is stretchy enough, you can have both brothers running around independently, performing actions to solve the puzzles in the game.

A lot of the puzzles are built solely for this mechanic. You might need to use one brother to distract a monster while the other stands ready with the lever that will spring the trap.

You might be climbing up a cliff together, linked by rope, and have each brother swing around in tandem to reach new areas.

You might need to cross a river, except the younger brother can’t swim, so you make the older brother swim while the younger brother hangs onto his back.

All of this and more.

It’s an interesting experience, and actually makes me feel almost dyslexic at times.

I would have them both running around fine for a while and then suddenly completely lose track of which stick controls which brother. What would end up happening is that they’d be running together and, suddenly, both of them would sprint in opposite directions away from each other. I’d eventually wrangle my mind into identifying which brother is attached to which stick and proceed apace but these incidents occur with disturbing frequency.

Turns out? I’m not nearly as ambidextrous as I thought.

Still, the game is a gem.

Gorgeous and lush visuals/environments. A LOT of little touches went into the world building, even if you don’t really explore every single ramification during the course of the game.

But wandering through these areas show a lot of love that went into putting the world and the environments together.

The story is strong, which is damned strange given the fact that there’s no narrative. When the characters speak, they do it through a babbling made-up language so you get most of your comprehension from their actions and gestures.

Most of the interaction between the brothers is done through the same way, and the only words they ever really say to each other is calling out each others names. You DO see their very distinct personalities shine through, though.

Using the older brother to wake up the elderly guide will have him gently shake the man by the shoulder to get  his attention.

Use the younger brother to wake him up? He’ll grab a bucket of water and splash the poor old geezer.

The game is short, clocking in around 3 hours only so the more frugal among you may want to wait on a sale of some sort but the couple hours you play are pretty engaging ones. The control gimmick actually pays off in a HUGE way right near the end of the game (if you’ve beaten this game, you know exactly what I’m talking about) and it’s something that really made me sit up and take notice.

Brothers is currently available on PC, Playstation, and Xbox so whatever your fancy, if you care to give it a try, it should be available.

A word of warning though, if you DO pick it up for PC (on Steam), the game DOES require a controller to play. You cannot play without one.

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