XBLA has had some incredible titles over the past few years. Some of my favorite gaming experiences ever came from ambitious little games like Limbo, Stacking, Costume Quest, Castle Crashers, and of course, Bastion. Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, is the perfect game for this downloadable market. It's innovative, but that can often be a bad thing when you're making a 60$ game. However, publishers seem to be much more comfortable taking the risk with a new idea at 15$, but honestly, the game is so short, that I've been struggling to justify even the 15 bucks.
The game's featured gimmick are the unique controls. You use the left stick to control the older brother, and the right stick to control the younger. It works a lot better than you think, but I will admit that it has a decent learning curve, and even after you master the mechanics you still lose track of who's controlled by what every once in a while. It makes for some crazy imaginative puzzles though, my favorite is a solution that involves the little brother getting on the older's shoulders, covering yourselves in blood, (you do this at the blood waterfall of course) and then scaring a bunch of evil tribesmen.
The world you explore is awesome. The graphics don't impress in the first chapter, but as soon as you get out of the village and into the countryside, everything opens up and the scenery is gorgeous. Everyone speaks in a weird simlish-style language, with no subtitles, conveying the story through hand gestures and facial expressions. This is done really well, you'll never be confused as to what's going on, which makes me think that all the talking in other games might be unnecessary. The story is beautiful, as two brothers journey to find a magical tree that can save their dying father, and along the way you free a troll prisoner from giants, stop of tribal ritual that involves sacrificing a young girl, and get two parrots to bone each other.
Brothers has a problem though, it's really, really short. I beat the entire experience, getting every achievement along the way, in two sittings, just under 4 hours. 15$ for a 4 hour game is a hard sell, and I'm afraid that the unfortunate length holds this title back from rising to the upper-echelon of XBLA games. I don't think that game length matters all that much except in extreme cases, but it applies here. However, if you're like me, and don't factor in game-length to how good a game is, then I highly recommend Brothers, if only for the outstanding dead giant soldier level, where you have to kick over hundred feet tall hatchets and swords to severe the limbs of the dead giants that block your path. Gross, disturbing and giggle-awesome, that macabre level is the best part of the game.
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