Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons

Starbreeze has revealed just what "P13" is: a 3rd person action adventure.

For some reason, the idyllic autumnal landscapes with two boys exploring gives me a sense that this game won't end on a positive note.

Of course it won't, true art that wins oscars is sad after all

I wonder if that troll is their pet? The Last Guardian, Papo And Yo...

I think "Sons-A tale of two brothers" sounds better.

It's out.

A review of the game by Proton Jon:

Total Biscuit declared this his new favorite game of all time. Apparently it's a shining example of video game storytelling done right.

Anyone who's played it have any thoughts on the matter?

Man, that's a very bold claim. And from the same guy who loved Journey and hated Dear Esther.

To be fair, isn't Dear Esther kind of pretentious and poorly-executed in comparison?

Yeah, it sort of is. At least in the gameplay standpoint. The story being open to interpretation might be a point in its favor (hell, if Shadow of the Colossus can do it, why can't this one?), and thus might be the one saving grace of the title, but in the end it still comes off as somewhat pretentious and relies too much on Viewers Are Geniuses.

Then again, one may argue that saying "it's pretentious" is inherently anti-intellectualist.

I'm the last person I would call anti-intellectual and I'll say that Dear Esther is pretentious. (I haven't yet played Journey and unfortunately I don't own a PS 3 so I have to hope that the months-old rumor of thatgamecompany releasing a PC port comes true).

To be fair, what Dear Esther does is tell the player a whole lot while he/she is doing rather little. Journey is the opposite in that it barely tells the player anything but expects the player to do whatever he/she wants and maybe glean a bit of story along the way - which is itself even more open to interpretation than Dear Esther's.

Brothers is a sort of mid-point between the two. It tells the player quite a bit but it does so mostly through tasks that must be performed and puzzles that must be solved. TB has always been heavily biased in favor of Gameplay and Story Integration while also being a fan of good stories, so the game hits both his buttons.

Yeah, that's Dear Esther's main problem in my eyes - games are a medium where doing is important.

It seems this game has a few GOTY awards under its belt. It was the Best Xbox Game at this years VG As and is officially Total Biscuit's favorite game of 2013, as verified by his Top 10 Games of 2013 video.

Unlike Gone Home and Dear Esther, it seems like Brothers deserves the accolades it's getting, and I'm pretty excited to get this game soon just to experience it for myself.

edited 23rd Dec '13 2:09:32 PM by Nettacki

Alright, I bought and played the game at the Winter Steam Sale, and... I have to admit, I thought this game wouldn't live up to the hype, but it turns out I was wrong. While the mechanics are simple, the way they're used both for gameplay and narrative is really clever. Plus, the world design gives the impression of a much larger world, plus there's some really interesting creatures. While I'm an advocate of eliminating cutscenes entirely outside of very specific circumstances, the cutscenes used in this game are usually short, straightforward and to the point. The actual narrative is presented simply, mostly with body language and with Simish so that you get the feeling of dialogue without really being any aside from the two brothers yelling each other's names, and executed well enough to really give you the feels. The whole game has this rather 'Norse' feel, I think, with the whole tree of life thing, the creatures, the giants... Yeah.

Sure, it's short, but I wasn't expecting a long game - a longer game would've outstayed its welcome. Much like The Stanley Parable, sometimes it's better to keep a game short rather than draw it out far longer than necessary. And this game got the balance just right, I think.

This got me curious. I'm tempted to buy it too, but is the game playable at all if I don't have a controller?

edited 6th Jan '14 3:01:29 AM by Medinoc

The steam store page is actually somewhat misleading, there's perfectly workable set of keyboard controls in-game, which can be modified a bit for comfort.

Thanks.