9 Video Games That Used Everything You'd Learned Against You

1. Brothers: A Tale Of Two Sons

Okay, I’m ringing my spoiler bell again because I really want you to play this game and I don’t want to spoil it for you. Don’t worry this is the last one so if you have to leave the video now I’ll just see you next time.

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is the first game from Josef ‘F The Oscars’ Fares. It’s a fantastic game with a curious control system. You play as two brothers but it’s not a co-op game, each brother is controlled by one thumbstick, the controller split between the two protagonists. It sounds clunky but it actually works quite well and you get into the rhythm of controlling the boys through their journey to find a cure for their father’s illness. One of the pivotal things in the game is the little brother’s inability to swim. When approaching water it’s up to the older brother to help him across.

Toward the end of the game a tragedy befalls the older brother and the little brother has to push on without him to return the cure to his father. It’s absolutely gut-wrenching but made all the more so when you reach water. If you’re not already crying, you will be when you realise the solution to this final hurdle as the sole brother is to use the dead brother’s side of the controller to have his spirit encourage his little brother across. After that, every familiar puzzle on the way back home that you’ve previously solved as the older brother, you now solve as the younger brother, with the spirit of the older brother behind you. It’s absolutely freaking heartbreaking but an extremely powerful use of a game using what you’ve learned against you in a wildly clever narrative and mechanical way.