Brothers

Brothers is a surprisingly excellent game that’s filled with beautiful visual storytelling and a unique game-play mechanic that has the player controlling two characters on screen at the same time. This game requires a dual-stick controller. Each stick independently controls the movements of each the two titular brothers while the L/R triggers serve as the interact/action buttons for boys. This sounds like it would be impossible to control, but it doesn’t take all that much getting used to. What it does is open up the game to all sorts of puzzle solving where the left side of your body needs to cooperate with the right to get everything working on screen.

Fortunately, this isn’t just another puzzle platformer. There is a simple and effective adventure story that leads the player from set piece to set piece. Each section of the game has its own little story to tell and interesting characters to meet. Although it is really linear, you are encouraged to take time and explore little nooks and corners of the levels to see how the two brothers react. The game is short (finish-able in 2–3 hours), but the length feels just about right for the limited amount of variety the unique control mechanic can offer.