Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is often heralded as a bright point in video game storytelling, and I wish I could agree, but there just isn't enough presented here for me to give it such a ringing endorsement. Visually, the game is exceptional, especially for a lower budgeted title, and there are some good efforts at building a world here, with an invented language and fanciful creatures abounding. Sounds good, right? Unfortunately, it never goes any deeper than this. You may point out that this is a game and games do not necessarily need a deep story, and that is true, but even as a game, this leaves a lot to be desired. Generally, I don't mind so-called walking simulators, but that's because they usually have strong thematic elements or a good story behind them. In Brothers, the player simply moves from one set-piece to the next without any meaningful plot development, and what makes it worse is that you must control each character individually. This might not sound like a major flaw, but it rarely is necessary to move them in separate directions, leading this mechanic to be tedious rather than enriching, and the reliance on this schtick leads me to the reason for most of the game's praise. After playing through most of the game using both analog sticks, you are suddenly only controlling using ones. Perhaps, I am already saying too much to avoid spoiling anything, but I will leave it at that. For some people, the story events leading to this were apparently very meaningful, but I found I was given no reason to care. It was pure emotional manipulation. Brothers gets praised for taking its players on a surrealistic and emotional journey, but there just isn't enough going on for me to feel said emotion here. It's pure melodrama, and I'm not buying it. That it wants to wring emotions out of me that it never earned just feels insulting. I have to give some props to the game for being visually impressive and for being a relatively novel concept, but that does not mean that it is a good game. I could almost forgive it for being pedestrian, but I simply cannot tolerate the emotional manipulation at work here in combination with the terrible controls. What good is it for the game to elicit emotion from its player if it has nothing to say? This game may succeed at being a pity party, but I couldn't begin to tell you what it's supposed to mean. Perhaps, it is about the value of a sibling, but it does so little during the course of the game to support this thesis. Having a brother in this game feels like a hindrance, not a privilege. To summarize, this fanciful trip plays poorly and is devoid of intellectual worth. You must find something else to do with your time than to play this, and moreover, if this is what passes for great art, then it's no wonder that the general public thinks games are lagging behind other media.