The Case

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is a downloadable single player co-op game from visionary Swedish film director - Josef Fares. The game received some favourable reviews when it was released about a month ago on Xbox live. Since then, PC gamers have been waiting patiently for Brothers to arrive, so that they can experience the journey for themselves. So without further ado let us see if the game lives up to expectations.

The Trial

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is an epic journey of two brothers. To save their father, the two siblings are sent upon a quest to obtain water from the tree of life by the village shaman. To accomplish this, the brothers need to work together in order to complete various puzzles along their journey. With many obstructions on their path, the brothers go through a lot, and you cannot help but find a personal attachment to the duo and feel the need for their quest.

The story of Brothers is well written and, although the game is about the rather dark topic of death, it is handled delicately and meaningfully in clever ways. Clearly a lot of thought has been put into the story and into the narrative itself. Whether through helping the characters you meet on the journey or through the choices that the brothers must make along the way, the game beautifully describes and captures the emotions portrayed within itself. It is all told in an amazing, philosophical nature which adds to the overall atmosphere of the game.

Controlling the two brothers is at first a strange experience. The developers devised a simple, yet intuitive method of using just the two thumbsticks and, as action buttons, the left and right trigger buttons of your controller. Moving the brothers is done by using the thumbsticks, being that the left thumbstick controls the older and the right thumbstick controls the younger brother. The same applies to the action buttons with the left button controlling the older and the left the younger brother.

When moving both the brothers at the same time using both thumbsticks, it can get a little bit tricky as, per status quo, the right thumbstick is normally used for moving camera angles and not for controlling a character. At first, whenever I attempted to move the camera around I would inadvertently move the younger brother instead.

Completing the puzzles does require a little thought, though most of the puzzles are relatively simple to work out and you probably will not spend too much time on them. Indeed, I found it to be a rare occasion if I had to experiment and devise a plan for more than five minutes. Though the puzzles vary in the game, they all require both brothers to be solved, which both emphasises the need to incorporate both into your game as well as nicely adding to the personal nature of their quest. For example, faced with a high platform and a broken ladder, the older brother boosts his younger sibling up, then climb the rope his brother threw down. While a rather simple example, the puzzles within the game are very cleverly designed on how they make use of both brothers before a completion is possible.

The visuals in the game are rendered very well and they add atmosphere to the title, giving it a dark feeling which captures the essence of the game perfectly. The subtle use of colours and shades, along with the amazing lighting really makes this a beautiful game without the use of fancy 3D graphics which require a top end PC to run the game. The visuals will be one of the elements which will have an immediate impact upon the player when the game is played for the first time.

Starbreeze have opted to go with a ‘The Sims’ style speech system; all the characters talk, but they do not speak an actual language. Instead, they make up peculiar sounds and mumbles which ultimately becomes an enjoyable form of communication even though their actual speech is incomprehensible. It works well since, considering no actual words are spoken, the story of the game is understandable all the way through. This is down to the fact that the story is told more through actions and events which, all credit to Starbreeze, manages to pull off nicely.

The personalities which have been given to the brothers are just right. Along their quest, the younger brother, playful and cheery as any young boy, is kept in check by his older sibling, who guides and protects the lad. It is one of these small things with which Brothers bridges the gap from a game to a tangible and understandable real life situation and draws you into its own little universe even further.

Music wise there is not much as the atmosphere is set more by the ambient noises around the environment, like waterfalls, animals, and people talking...well, grumbling. Atmospheric music is used during scenes of importance which works really well to give a truly engrossing gameplay experience.

The Verdict

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is a different type of game, which makes for a refreshing change. Brothers has a storyline which, as the game progresses, becomes very emotional. With many different challenges that obstruct the brothers, some ending well and some not, the game is given its unique charm. Brothers is a sad game given that it is about death, but it balances this with a blend of happy and sad bits throughout. All in all, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons could be a surprise game of the year contender within the indie community.

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