With technology growing more and more advanced as time goes by, video games will be able to be experienced in more advanced ways. From the start video game peripherals have just started to move from the conventional handheld controller to things like Motion control and even Virtual reality. As I've said many times before the ability to interact and have a choice is what separates video games from other arts and this is because of the controller. But normally the controller is simply seen as a way to control the game, a barrier between you and the game, as opposed to making it a way to connect the player to the game. which is what the gameplay or narrative is usually for.
This idea of using the controls not merely as an interface,or a barrier to getting your characters to clumsily move around on the screen, but instead uses it as a part of the story telling. This is something that no video game company has done before. But recently a company called Starbreeze studios has made a game that does exactly this. A game called Brothers: a tale of two son's.
Brothers is a fantasy adventure game where you play not as one character like most games, but as two characters. In this case you play as both little brother and big brother.
Summary of the game:
(SPOILERS)
The Game starts off with the little brother kneeling in front of his mothers tombstone, after a quick flashback we learn that she died drowning while the little brother tried to save her. Because of the way she died and how the little brother could save her. He develops a fear of water which affects him over the course of the adventure that awaits him. Not only has he and his big brother lost their mother but they also risk losing their father as he is ill. little brother is called by big brother to help wheel their father to a doctor. Once you've brought him to the doctor, you are tasked with getting a healing potion which is the water from a tree of life that will help their father. thus beginning their Journey.
(View if you want to)
Throughout their journey they come across many varied location such as the village they started in, a mine full of troll slaves, a cliff-side home of an inventor, a giant's castle, as well as other less fortunate locations such as a war torn valley full of the corpses of giants, a spider cave and an abandoned frozen village. In these locations they also come across other characters who they help, such as, freeing a troll and his wife from the mines and other more serious situations like where they prevent a man from hanging him self.
first encounter of a troll
Mines
Flying towards the giants castle with one of the inventors contraptions
War-torn valley of Giants
During their journey they end up saving a woman from some sort of religious blood cult. after traveling with here both brothers find out that this woman is actually a giant spider.Even though the brothers are able to work together to defeat her. she manages to mortally wound big brother.
Girl captured by the Blood cult
Fight with the giant spider
Big brother being mortally wounded
(view from 9:00 - 15:00)
Once brought back to a shore line near his home during a rain fall the little brother is finally tasked with overcoming his fear of water by swimming all by himself back towards the village where he is able to deliver the healing water to his father.
After the father has fully recovered from his sickness the game ends where you began, in front of your mothers tombstone except now with your big brothers tomb stone next to it.
The end
My Opinions of the game
Within the two hours of gameplay that the game offers it is able to show the player a world of fantasy, war, religion, danger, sadness, happiness and so much more throughout the two brothers' journey. Each Situation evoking it's own different emotion.
Each of these are either caused or effected by each other through the way the game presents itself to the player and isn't told through dialogue. The characters that you play as and those that you meet along the way don't speak any language, but in gibberish. Why? because it's just not needed, it doesn't need to rely on scripts and voice acting to advance you through the game. You can still understand what's going on through their gestures as well as the world around you, Another video game that executes this very well that I've talked about before is Journey.
The variety that this game presents to the player, is there so that no matter what, the player should feel something during the whole game. If you weren't touched when the little brother had to watch his mother sink to the bottom of the sea, then you'll hopefully be touched when you given the task of burying your own dead brother, while you watch the little brother sob and slowly move and push each pile of dirt.
Although this game is set in a fantasy world of trolls and giants it still is able to bring a sense of powerlessness where compared to most other fantasy games where you are either a skilled archer or a powerful wizard. Brothers has the two main characters react to each situation the same way any real person would since the brothers posses no significant power, which shows that the companionship between the big brother and little brother are a power in itself. Allowing them to make this entire journey with nothing but them selves.
Interactivity
The most important thing that allows the game to connect you to each situation is the way Star breeze has changed the controls.
As I said before this game uses one controller to control two characters at the same time. You may think that the controls will have to be more complex to compensate, but in fact it's been simplified. Where One thumb stick controls one brother and one controls the other, thus allowing you to move them. and it also gives you one button for each brother to allow them to interact with anything. making that a total of 4 buttons to use.
This control scheme is able to use the player's curiosity to their advantage, because as you journey through this world you also come across other characters, whom the brothers are able to interact with.
This connects you more to each brother as the player would be curious to see how each brother would react to the situation at hand. One moment is where you come across a bird cage. If the big brother interacts with it, we see that he plays and pets the bird inside, however when the little brother interacts with the cage, he simply opens the cage and let's the bird loose.
Game director Josef Fares states that "It is extremely important that Brothers is a single player experience.""It is extremely important that you bond and connect with the brothers, with the left hand as big brother and the right hand as little brother."
This control scheme was made on purpose, as it allows the player to connect to each brother and connect to the way they feel during each situation, because if you simplify anything it makes it easier to connect to most people.
The player should not feel like they're an audience to the story but because of the way Brothers uses interactivity, it is able to make you feel as a apart of the story. which is what this Brothers has executed and shown to the world.
This game has been able to Connect you to the characters on a screen no other game ever has.
It shows that the true strength in video game narrative comes in the interactivity of this medium, which is what no other movie, TV show or book can provide that kind of interactivity.
First video from: XCVii007r1
Second from: RabidRetrospectGames
