Ohhhhh Brother

A couple of weeks back I managed to sit down and play through Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. The game, which should be experienced by everyone I might add, is singular and focused, and reminds me of why so many more ambitious titles often feel lacklustre.

Briefly, the player assumes the roles of two brothers, where the actions of one are controlled using the left analog stick and L2 button / left trigger, while the actions of the other are controlled using the right analog stick and R2 button / right trigger. The entire experience involves navigating the environment, often through a combination of platforming and puzzle-solving.

Most importantly, I felt very strongly connected to each brother. Occasionally, you would be tasked with controlling one brother while the other brother is inactive. These moments served to remind me of the connection I began to feel with both brothers as an operational duo. In other words the interface used to play the game to purposely connect the player emotionally with the artistry grafted onto the underlying codes used to give rise to the final product.

The entire point of this post is to point this fact out. Not only is it rare for a video game to purposively exist, it’s rarer still for one to draw me in using just a singular mechanic.

The last time I felt so utterly in awe by this complimentarity was with Spec Ops: The Line. It too needed to exist in video game format. By game’s end, I felt repulsed by the actions that I made throughout the game, and distanced myself morally from the avatar I was controlling. The result was a strange dissonance between what the developers demanded I do and what I very unwillingly was forced to do. Choice became a false dichotomy, and I became disgusted with the main character—even though by virtue of me playing as him, I was the one at fault for these machinations to begin with. 

Before that was the original BioShock, which served as a vehicle for discussing how little agency a player has in a story-driven video game.

Unfortunately, both of these titles were held back by occasional pacing issues, pedestrian combat, and a general feeling that, despite best intentions of bridging game mechanics with an overarching narrative, each of these games needed to be functional action experiences. In other words, these larger titles managed to create emotional resonance but failed to be consistently fun games.

Brothers did not falter in this manner. Brothers did no falter at all; period.