Brothers by Starbreeze

Looks like they're going a fantasy route for their next shooter. Man, I love them.

http://www.giantbomb.com/videos/work...

After Syndicate they get day-one, no-questions-asked treatment.

Blind_Evil wrote:

After Syndicate they get day-one, no-questions-asked treatment.

Totes.

That looks like it could be something really special. Can't wait to see more!

Looks very neat and totally not what I was expecting of the next Starbreeze game. Although if I remember correctly, there's been a major shift in core personnel around time of Syndicate. I'm not sure it's my kind of game, but very interesting nonetheless.

I guess this is our Brothers thread? Well, it's not a shooter, and it's not like Syndicate.

I just wanted to talk about a few moments I had in that game that struck me as especially powerful. I also wanted to get deeper readings of the story, since a lot of the stuff in Gone Home escaped me completely. Spoilers ahoy:

Spoiler:

I can't get over how well they handled the spider-girl near the end of the game. Throughout the Abominable Snowman level, she's constantly performing these superhuman feats: incredible jumps, feats of strength and uncanny agility. As a veteran gamer, I just chalked this up to video game physics, and completely disregarded it. But it turns out to be pretty horrific foreshadowing. There's also the point right before the cave where they've changed her model very subtly, but not so much that you suspect what's coming next. You know there's something weirdly creepy about her, but again, it just feels like video game uncanny valley business. So you ignore it and continue on. And then she reveals herself as the spider-woman, and everything bad happens.

That turn makes me wonder about the previous quarter of the game. Were the weird tribesman that you tricked about to execute a vicious monster? Was the Abominable Snowman hunting down the creature that killed all of its tiny friends? Probably not what with the munching, but it made me think a bit.

The other thing about this reveal is that up to this point, the game has been relatively playful and carefree. Even when you're climbing over a mountain of corpses, the gross-out sounds from the brothers about chopping arms off, or shooting enormous crossbows set the tone moreso than the enormous bodies that have melded into the landscape. So when the older brother gets wounded, it's such a shock that you don't quite process it correctly, and spend the next portion of the game not quite realizing what happened. Very much like in real life.

Somehow, as you're sending the younger brother climbing up the tree, I knew that the older brother wasn't going to make it. They foreshadowed it briefly in the wolf level, but it was more about the internal logic of the world. This wasn't a world with dungeons and dragons healing potions. This was a world that suffered tragedy quite often, and one where a medicine to cure pneumonia wasn't necessarily going to be the same thing that cured a punctured lung. I guess the best thing you can say about that scene is that I didn't feel sad, I felt empty. I felt nothing. That's how I feel when people that I know die or are otherwise taken out of my life. The thing I kept coming back to was the turtles. It was one of the optional scenes that you didn't need to complete to advance. Also the most easily found of those scenes. In it, the older brother pretty much single-handedly carries three orphaned baby turtles to the sea to be reunited with their mother. The little brother helped, but it was really all the big brother in that scene. And after he died, I kept thinking, "What about the turtles? Doesn't he get any credit for the turtles? Where's the magic turtle goddess to make all this right?" But it doesn't work that way. Not in real life, and not in this world.

On a less reverent note, if I were the father, I think I would have beaten the priest/doctor to death with my bare hands. You sent my children on a quest through the troll caves, into the land of the warrior giants and through a ghost town stalked by invisible monsters and ruled by a spider queen? What the f*ck is wrong with you? Maybe next time keep your mouth shut and hope that the old guy just recovers naturally!

I'm on chapter 3, maybe halfway through it. I bought it on PS3 because I'm not confident in my 360's reliability going forward, and I kind of regret it. The game is all sticks and triggers, no doubt the worst part of the Dualshock 3.

OH JEEZ. Just finished and...

Spoiler:

I was more or less totally fine up until the point where you need to use the left trigger to swim in the water at the end and then that pretty much broke me completely Forget about it being dusty, was starting to worry the room might get flooded. Just thinking about it again now is damn near enough to set me off again.

It's on my top 10 game of the year list fo' sho' and there's going to have to be something bloody superb between now and the end of the year to knock it off again.

It's definitely up there for me, too. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Finished it up. I think the game's strong points are the environments and the mechanics, which I didn't expect given the game's reception. There's just not a lot out there like it, in terms of how it controls. As far as the narrative...

Spoiler:

it didn't hit me emotionally until the father started crying. I was expecting a bit more, but I'm starting to think I can't empathize with uncommunicative characters. This game did something, but less than expected, and Journey did absolutely nothing.

Overall though, fantastic. It's like Journey but a way better game.

I finished it last night. Wonderful. Some thoughts:

Spoiler:

The spirit of your older brother coming through the left trigger? Wonderful mechanic.

Also, I was sure that the story was not going to end well, so the death at the end was not too surprising. After the dream, the whole game foreshadowed death. The bird helps them out, then (apparently) dies. The dead giants the mountain. The blood running down the stream. The snow people who are all clearly in the act of doing something (including assaulting a town) and then were turned into snow. The invisible giant falling to its death.

I look forward to listening to the Conference Call spoiler section. Now I also need to play Gone Home so I can read Sean's article.

Just finished this after a single session. I think it's just downright wrong that Gone Home is getting the majority of the praise, accolades and from what I can tell, sales over this game. Gone Home has nothing whatsoever against this title in terms of emotional storytelling and storytelling through gameplay in my opinion. I saw most of the "twists" in Gone Home coming a mile away, I knew twists were coming in this but most of them were not what I expected. I almost never cry as a result of media, Hell I almost never cry in general. The last 20 minutes of this game had me weeping like a little kid...

Spoiler:

I get anxiety triggers from seeing animal peril, whether in media or real life. Seeing the bird in the cage after being experimented on started a panic and I've never pushed analog sticks so hard trying to rescue it. When it died after giving one last flight to the brothers, I welled up immediately and just started at the scene for about 3 minutes before I moved on.

Spoiler:

The entire part where Little Brother had to bury Big Brother which fighting both extreme sadness and exhaustion was brutal, especially given how painfully slow the movement intentionally was. Then when I saw the (new?) bird come down and embrace Little Brother, I completely lost it. Out and out bawling through the entire incredible cutscene where it rushes you home.

Spoiler:

As others said, the parts where you have to use Big Brother's interact trigger to make Little Brother pull off feats he otherwise couldn't is brilliant mechanics design.

Spoiler:

I expected a slightly cliché ending where after starting at the grave, the Father would either hug to take Little Brother's hand and they would either continue staring or start to walk away as the camera panned off. When he suddenly broke down and started crying, I kind of didn't know how to react because it was so unexpected, then when the bird flew across the sky, I lost it again and was bawling through the entire credits.

I am astonished at the transition of Starbreeze from a AAA contract developer doing stuff like Riddick and Syndicate to doing this and Payday 2. Both massive shifts in direction and tone and yet, executed as masterfully as much of their AAA stuff was. For a studio that was almost bankrupted by Syndicate's failure, this is an incredible turnaround story for the game industry. They are truly masters of their craft.

Even as someone who thinks Gone Home is overrated in general, it simply isn't in the same league as this game in my opinion. If you can only afford one title or the other, I would recommend Brothers: A Tale of Two sons over it without a second's thought. It's a better story, better told and just a better game to boot.

Spoiler:

I think the bird drawings above the desk are of a Phoenix. The interpretation I had, that I'm clinging to because I like it, is that the owl gryphon whatever has the resurrective qualities of a Phoenix.

Eh, I'm more with Blind_Evil on this one. None of the emotional beats really connected for me with this game. I appreciated the art direction and naturalistic puzzle design, but that's it. In fact there are a few things to dislike about this game as pointed out a little while ago in the Tropes vs Women thread. As for the comparison to Journey, I can't really say since I only watched an LP of Journey, but I actually liked what I saw there more.

Odd question.

Spoiler:

Why was the Snowman invisible?

Or did I run into an odd bug?

Trashie wrote:

Odd question.

Spoiler:

Why was the Snowman invisible?

Or did I run into an odd bug?

Spoiler:

It's never explained but I was wondering too.

It's not a bug.

Trashie wrote:

Odd question.

Spoiler:

Why was the Snowman invisible?

Or did I run into an odd bug?

Spoiler:

I felt like that whole segment where you are running from the snowman was more about the girl you were following than about the monster chasing you. A few posts back, Kazooka mentioned her superhuman feats during that section. Maybe they were trying to make you focus on her more than the monster. If I had been distracted by seeing the monster, I might not have noticed that she was able to to things any normal person couldn't.

Trashie wrote:

Odd question.

Spoiler:

Why was the Snowman invisible?

Or did I run into an odd bug?

Spoiler:

I think it's a play on the old abominable snowman trope. There were a lot of stories in the 80's and 90's about how nobody ever found a yeti because they were invisible.

kazooka wrote:
Trashie wrote:

Odd question.

Spoiler:

Why was the Snowman invisible?

Or did I run into an odd bug?

Spoiler:

I think it's a play on the old abominable snowman trope. There were a lot of stories in the 80's and 90's about how nobody ever found a yeti because they were invisible.

Upon further reflection, it's just one of the things in the game that goes unexplained. And I guess I like it that way.

I'm surprised the thread on this isn't longer. What an amazing game. I bought it on a whim during the Halloween sale and knew that the ending needed to be unspoiled, so I bought it on no other recommendation other than the praise on the CC.

Dang. What a game. I guessed at the ending as they had foreshadowed it quite a bit, but wow. The art direction, design, and environment were impeccable.

Bought this on the Halloween Sale because of the art direction & the environments looked amazing, plus the excellent reviews. I definitely enjoyed it & after reading Kazooka's post its added even more intrigue & depth than I initially thought. The journey of the two brothers was paced really well & the diversity in the environments made each section a joy to go through (I think I sat on every seat just to take in the views). Starbreeze got quite a lot of emotion across with 'Sims' language which is no easy feat, I honestly didn't think the game would have went in the direction it did from the almost childlike start, progressing onto a more mature game that wasn't afraid to be graphic & switch up expectations.

Spoiler:

The part after that clan were going to kill what turned out to be the spider lady was visually stunning, rowing the boat, the whales swimming underneath the water, coming up to the surface & jumping out of the water. Really cool scene.

Spoiler:

I found you could really get attached to the animals in the game, the bird you save & then it dies after the short journey it takes you, the mountain goats were awesome, that was a well designed ride up & around the mountain, I sadly never experienced the little turtles, I only seen the big one which was a superb little part.

Spoiler:

I'm glad the end went how it did, it turned out to be a beautiful, taxing & harsh journey in the end & the developers didn't take the easy way out with a cliche ending, the game by that point demanded more. I am also bewildered at that idiot priest sending the fathers two sons out on a dangerous journey were another live is lost to eventually get the father a cure. There should be DLC which should be the little brother on the bird, priest is dangling by the claws & you just drop him off at the blood clan for sacrifice :-)

Overall a really enjoyable little game, I'm still not a fan of controlling two characters with the right & left analogue sticks though.

Couldn't find the option to stop my pc from releasing dust into the room.
So much dust.

From a pure gameplay mechanics perspective, I really enjoyed the use of the two sticks to control the two brothers. Trying to control the two brothers simultaneously and get them to move "naturally," particularly in situations where they were both moving in different directions at the same time, was an interesting challenge in itself.

I found the terrain and vistas in the game to be amazingly beautiful. I spent a lot of time just admiring all of the views.

As for the ending...

Spoiler:

I'm generally not very good at this kind of thing, but I didn't see the fate of older brother coming at all. The game had kind of lulled me into thinking by that point that the brothers were basically quasi-superheroic, with all of the various feats they manage to pull off throughout the game.

Spoiler:

After older brother needed to go to a lot of trouble to cross the trench in the castle at the end, and then the girl simply jumped it, I thought "huh, I guess she is super-powered too, just in a different way." In a different way indeed, as it turned out.

Spoiler:

Then at the very end, it was moving how older brother's death carried over into the "real world" in the form of me completely taking my left hand off the controller. Having to then use my left hand once again to get little brother to swim just added to the effect.

If you haven't played it, do be aware of the game's length. This is in no way a negative comment, but it's kind of a "short story" of a game, rather than a full "novel." I clocked in at around three hours to finish it.

Wonderful game.

Just finished, and this game blew me away. It was everything I thought Journey was going to be but sadly wasn't.

I can't desribe why, but nowadays it's all about surprises with me. I knew nothing about this game except the dual control mechanic. It moved me more than I thought it would.

Just finished and the game is amazing. I was actually bored with the beginning and almost dropped it. The game really picks up at the first darkish moment, well the second one really.

If you can make sure to play with a controller with rumble support. The game makes very good use of rumble at the end.

Blind_Evil wrote:

I'm on chapter 3, maybe halfway through it. I bought it on PS3 because I'm not confident in my 360's reliability going forward, and I kind of regret it. The game is all sticks and triggers, no doubt the worst part of the Dualshock 3.

There is a great deal on this on the AU SONY market place right now, AU$21.95 down to AU$6.52.

It's sitting in the Steam sale at 50% off, US$7.49 or AU$8.40.

Do I sit out the Steam Sale, so I can play it with my 360 controller, and hopefully get a flash sale price, or is it completely destroyed with the DS3? The SONY deal extends beyond the Steam sale, so I lose nothing playing the waiting game. I just don't want the controls to get in the way of the experience.

I wouldn't say they get in the way, it's just less than ideal. I guess wait and see what happens on Steam? I'm a console guy so for me the answer would be the PS3 version, but I don't know which you prefer.

My lounge room is all consoles, so I too prefer that option. If it hits a crazy 75-80% off on Steam then I guess I could put up with a crappy desk chair instead.

I recently managed to get hold of a PS3 version of the xtendplay peripheral I've been using on my 360. It really helps getting around the 'claw' effect when holding the controller. It wasn't so much an issue on the 360, and I used it mainly for shoulder button intensive games, but the DS3 I'm finding hard to hold with my giant monkey hands.

If you can find one going cheap on Amazon, or eBay, it might be worth a look at.

IMAGE(http://members.iinet.net.au/~monkey.boy/GWJ/xtendplay.jpg)

I don't have trouble with the size, it's that the sticks are loose and too tall, and the triggers aren't actually triggers.

I don't expect I'll be playing a ton more on PS3, anyway. Also, the DS4 works for a decent number of games, so that's an option.

Blind_Evil wrote:

I don't have trouble with the size, it's that the sticks are loose and too tall, and the triggers aren't actually triggers.

I don't expect I'll be playing a ton more on PS3, anyway. Also, the DS4 works for a decent number of games, so that's an option.

I found that out 'after' I bought a new controller for my recently acquired PS3. It's a shame, I could have seriously swung that deal too

Just finally finished this game, it is really something to look at. Especially the scenes climbing the tree with the aurora borealis in the background were just incredibly beautiful.

The story stumbled for me in some places, I thought some of the Big Emotional Moments were kinda hammy, especially when the wailing music sets in, but I definitely liked the game overall.