<\/em><\/p>\n

Although I’m not proud of it, I can sometimes be the kind of person who gets a little temper-tantrumy when I can’t figure something out, like a child who can’t work out how to open a bag of crisps \u2014 which may be an exceptionally apt comparison, since it probably also involves me being hangry, too. It’s not like I go full terrible-twos-tantrum, sitting on the floor, banging my fists and screaming, but it’s the closest I get to rage-quitting. I’ll insist that a puzzle is stupid, or impossible, or that the developers didn’t offer enough hints, until finally<\/em> the puzzle (or more precisely, the twist of the puzzle) clicks, and I feel like a numpty for having thrown a little sulk about it.<\/p>\n

And this is precisely<\/em> what happened with Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons.<\/p>\n

The entire game is played with two halves of the controller: One controls the elder brother, the other, the younger brother. It’s a neat mechanic that allows for a lot of interesting puzzles, but I honestly don’t remember any of them. The bit I remember is towards the end, where your poor older bro gets seduced and then stabbed by a spider, and you’re left to mourn, bury, and leave him on your own.<\/p>\n

Without your older, wiser sibling to guide you, encourage you, and teach you how to navigate the world, everything is harder. Rocks are twice as heavy. Cliffs are twice as high. Doors take twice as long to open.<\/p>\n

But it’s all possible. It’s just hard<\/em>. Until, that is, you’re faced with a seemingly insurmountable obstacle: a body of water. You see, the younger brother cannot swim. This is told to you earlier in the story, I think, as yet another reason why the young boy needs his brother to help him, but now his brother is gone, and he stands, desolate and paralysed with fear, on the shore.<\/p>\n