Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is one of the finest examples of video game storytelling made thus far and is a must-play for anyone that actually cares about games as an artistic medium. It's fine if you think it's boring - you're wrong, but it's fine - or if you couldn't wrap your head around the controls - which aren't that hard - but doing so means I'm probably not going to put much weight into your opinions about, well, anything. Brothers is a masterpiece. Read more and watch gameplay right here.
Back in 2013 I gave Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons my Xbox Game of the Year award for About.com. That was a year that also had Grand Theft Auto 5, BioShock Infinite (lolz at this winning GOTY ...), the Tomb Raider reboot, and a few other top-tier AAA titles. It also had The Last of Us on PS3, which won most of the GOTY awards that year, but I didn't have to consider it because I was an Xbox only site. And, looking back, I wouldn't have given it to The Last of Us anyway because that game is ridiculously overrated and not fun at all. So there.
Read our Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons review
Read our Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons review
Back then indie games, on consoles at least, were still sort of a novelty and not really "Game of the Year" material for not only a lot of gamers, but a lot of gaming publications allegedly full of actual grown adult journalists. Very few, if any, other sites even put Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons on their top 10 lists at the end of the year, let along naming it GOTY, but I did. I was a super brave cool dude.
Why did / do I think it is so good? Because of everything, really. It has gorgeous visuals and amazing music. It tells an amazing story that elicits the entire spectrum of emotions even though the characters never speak a word. The unique control scheme where you control two characters at the same time, while being confusing at first, ultimately connects you to the characters and the story you are participating in far better than more traditional control methods. The game also has a solid amount of variety in terms of the puzzles you have to solve, the different ways you get around the world, and a ton of optional (usually achievement-related) extra things you can do while you're exploring. When you put all of this together, it really is a nearly perfect video game experience in my mind.
For this video I played through Chapter 4 of the story. I didn't want to start at the beginning, because the first chapter is sort of plodding and boring and where a lot of people gave up, so I wanted to show off something more interesting. Chapter 4 has a couple of really fantastic moments, too, that really stand out and will hopefully convince people to give the game a try again if you didn't love it the first time around. Believe me, it's worth it to learn the controls and see what all of the fuss is about. This game is amazing and I can't recommend it highly enough. Play it. Play it you fools. Dammit, play it.
