‘Brothers’, A Tale of Rubbing Your Belly, While Patting Your Head

This week’s episode of the Moving Pixels Podcast is on Brother: A Tale of Two Sons.

Brothers is a game that made it into my personal top 5 last year on the back of it utilizing the medium to do something different and far more focused than most video games can claim. I’ve written a base explanation of how it uses the camera to great effect by doing something different where other video games wouldn’t even think about it and go with the standard. And that’s just one of the many things Brother does differently to better the overall work, even if it isn’t what you are supposed to do in a video game.

However, my respect for the game is even greater after having played it a second time for the podcast and our discussion during it. I labeled the game most a formalist exercise of a basic fairy tale adventure romp that got so much right. But after working our way through the details on the podcast I see a much deeper work about death and loss that extends beyond the game’s ending.

I don’t know if its because I’m seeing it from the other side, but I feel Moving Pixels has gotten deeper and more analytical as time has gone on. And this episode on Brothers is a prime example of a good critical discussion.

“Naia” “Naiee”