Broforce Review

Broforce looks like it’s going to be a shallow, brother-powered platformer where you hold down shoot and jump until you reach the end of each level. The whole concept of the game is based on bro culture, which doesn’t really have much depth.

But Broforce is anything but a brainless shooter. It may be if that’s all you are looking for. But it also has a lot of humor layered across all aspects of the game, ranging from the ridiculously over the top to the surprisingly clever. The concept itself is a joke, satirizing America’s high opinion of itself and the idea that it should offer freedom to the world. And the jokes keep coming from there.

It’s brother time!

The reasons your commander gives you to liberate countries, the colors of the threat level (“Salmon”), the descriptions of the bosses, the fact that your brothers start flexing their muscles and scaring the enemy when you take a charge of adrenaline – their “all opportunities for humor in Broforce. Even the names of the various characters are fun interpretations of existing action heroes. Rambro, Bro Hard, Brobocop and Double Bro Seven, just to name a few (there are 35 playable characters in the game).

Variety is another strong point in Broforce’s favor. Having 35 characters, each with their own unique main and secondary attack, means that there are a number of ways to approach each level. Some siblings are incredibly mobile, allowing you to quickly maneuver past danger; others are hardy and allow you to get close and close to enemies; while others have powerful weapons that excel when you keep your enemies at a distance.

You can’t choose which brother to take and you change many times during each level, so the gameplay is constantly evolving. You will find that you favor some siblings over others, either because of your attachment to the original character or because their play style suits you.

Do you lift too, brother?

The difficulty level of platformers varies greatly. You never know how challenging a game like Broforce will be until you get your hands on it. Sometimes they are too easy and the gameplay quickly becomes boring. Other times, they are so demanding that casual gamers are put off.

Broforce sits well in the middle of the range, perhaps a little more on the challenging side. A bullet, or an explosion, or the bite of an alien and most of the brothers fall. The characters are not very difficult for a group of muscular macho men (and very different from their original characters from the film). This means that you need to be aware of every little thing that happens around you. To counter your frail body, you have giant guns (arms and weapons) and many lives. So, like a real brother, you can first shoot and then think.

Would you rather have a plan before pulling the trigger? Broforce’s fully destructible stages offer you plenty of opportunities to become a tactician. You can dig under your enemies and pop up in places they don’t expect. Or you can use the explosive barrels and gas cylinders scattered around to detonate your enemies from a safe distance. Broforce loves a big blast. They are everywhere, and it is wonderfully exaggerated.

The boss fights each present their own unique challenge. You can get past them by banging your head against their machine, alien or demonic bodies over and over (and over and over). Or you can observe closely, work out their weaknesses and attack patterns, then give them a dose of freedom that will send them back to the hell they came from.

The Expendabros

Thanks to the film’s launch campaign The mercenaries 3, which saw the creation of a game-advertising hybrid in the form of The Expandabros, there’s more. You can play tons of new missions as brothers from the movie, for free.

But this is only the campaign mode. The amazing thing about Broforce is that it becomes even more fun and social when you play co-op with friends or with random people online if you like. With two sets of weapons to think about, there are even more explosions, heroic moments where you avenge your fallen brother, lots of laughs as you kill each other, and immense satisfaction when you work together to take down a challenging area or boss. Co-op mode will give you extra hours of gameplay, because it’s less about the story and more about socializing with friends.

Also, you can still play against other people mode to “show” your skills (this is “show off” in sibling talk). Versus mode can be played as a 1v1 deathmatch or as a race against another player to see who can finish a level faster.

Final verdict

If you like movies then think of Broforce as tropical thunder meets Team America: World Police. If you enjoyed those movies, you will love this game. The story is outrageous, the laughs are a lot (as well as the deaths), but you will feel immense satisfaction when you complete a challenging section. You will also say “‘Murica” ​​more than you have in your entire life.

The only big criticism of Broforce is that it’s too short. You can offer freedom to the whole world, whether you want it or not, in about 10 hours of gameplay. The game costs $ 14.99, so you pay around $ 1.50 per hour of play. If you think about it, it’s a good deal. The criticism isn’t that Free Lives made the game too short (it’s long enough for a platformer). It’s just that Broforce is so funny you wish there was more.

Broforce is definitely something you should have in your game library, ready to retire when you have friends for some couch co-op or when you’re tired of playing games that take themselves too seriously. He’s a winner, brother.