Go Cooperate With Yourself - Brothers: Tale Of Two Sons
Starbreeze debuted a fairly promising-looking trailer for its bro-op puzzle adventure Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons not too terribly long ago, but it wasn't tremendously illuminating in regards to how the game will actually, you know, play. Now, however, we finally have a (multi-part) answer: a) as a fascinating little hybrid of single-player and co-op, and b) probably better with a gamepad. While the latter's got me feeling less-than-brotherly toward Starbreeze (so much so, in fact, that I'll make fun of them for having a name that sounds like a fabric softener. Hah! Take that), I'm still quite intrigued by the possibilities here. Have your own brother help you past the break to see it in action. Unless you don't have a brother. Then I guess you should just give up.
So basically, you control one brother with one half of the controller, and the other with, er, the other. I imagine they'll just be mapped to different sides of the keyboard on PC (arrow keys plus WASD, etc), but I don't know for sure. To Starbreeze's super secret windmill-and-fabric-softener-powered space lair! Aka, its website's contact form.
But yes, the older brother seems stoic and reasonable, while the younger brother's central power appears to be sheer, unquenchable hatred for the elderly. Or, you know, being mischievous and therefore prone to grubby fingered domestic terrorism.
I don't really like children.
Anyway, the bit that sounds like it'll either make or break Brothers is its context-sensitive approach to the disparate duo's abilities. Their respective actions are mapped to a single button apiece, so it's simply a matter of figuring out which brother is best for the task at hand. On one hand, that could free up Starbreeze to go wild with environment and puzzle design, but on the other, it could also basically put those brain-ticklers on auto-pilot. It's a total toss-up at the moment, though the challenges in the trailer didn't seem to be particularly interested in reducing synapses to sizzling piles of ash.
But then, examples are often kept simple for a reason, so I'm definitely interested in seeing more. Fortunately, I shouldn't have to wait long, as Brothers is currently penciled in for a spring 2013 release.