Broforce (2015)

Broforce, is a game originally released in October 2015 for Windows, OS X  and Linux which began its life in early April 2012 as a Game Jam entry which gained a lot of attention online. It was developed by Free Lives who are relatively new to the scene and published by Devolver Digital, it has since been brought over to the Playstation 4 as a part of PS+ as one of the free games of March 2016.

This game is a 2d pixelated side scrolling action game, where you play as exaggerated versions of 80’s, 90’s and more recent action heroes but with ‘bro’ in their name, for example ‘Bromando’ or ‘Bronan the Barbarian’ as the Arnold Schwazenegger characters from the films Commando and Conan the Barbarian. This game focuses on its exaggerations of these movies and characters and puts a comedic spin on the whole 'bro culture' idea.

The aim of the game is to get through the levels in a certain number of lives and kill enemies along the way while reaching the goal and getting an extraction, as you progress the levels become a lot more challenging but to make it easier you can find a number of prisoners hidden (in plain sight) throughout the level who after a set amount of rescues become unlocks as other characters.

This game is very simple and a lot of fun, it’s not something I could play for hours on end but I have never disliked the time I have played it, It’s definitely one of those ‘pick up and play’ sort of games that are enjoyed best in short bursts. Although I don’t think I would come back to this game now that I have completed it (unless they added DLC).

I think with the harder difficulties I would potentially go back to it if it were put on the Vita, I know I'm a huge fan of the Vita but I do honestly feel the game is suited to this console, the only short fall being that the main issue I have with the game is the frame rate.

This game can have a lot going on screen at once, especially with the amount of explosives and the destructible environments and at times this causes a huge slow down, it does last long but it really doesn’t make the experience as enjoyable as it perhaps could be, I have also found at random times if I'm just walking my character will stop for no reason almost as if he can only walk for a set amount of steps, this has caused me to die on multiple occasions and can become quite frustrating at times.

 

Honestly while I enjoy this game a lot  I feel this is mostly an inferior version of Super Time Force, Super Time Force has a lot more variety to it, and as the name suggests time based mechanics which allow you stop and rewind time as well as having multiple lives to continue from where you were and potentially have a huge amount characters on screen at one time acting out what you did on the previous life.

Broforce does feature a wide array of characters and they generally play differently but most are gun based as you would imagine, there are those who use knives, bombs or in some cases just their fists, I think the most unique that I unlocked was the Rocketeer character as you could just jet pack everywhere and rocket punch the shit out of enemies.

You also come across small mechs at times which you can hijack, I found them to be really fun because they are not too over powered, they feel super janky and make it difficult to land which I feel makes the risk vs reward aspect of getting in one worth it. I've totally jumped on unsteady land in one a few times only to have the whole floor break apart which took me with it.

There are boss battles in the game which are usually elaborate mechs which at times can span the entirety of a level, at first I didn’t actually notice these were boss units as they were pretty simple but they became a lot larger and I found them to become really quite challenging towards the end of the game, you can totally cheese some depending on what character you got though.

Unfortunately that stands even with some of the later bosses, like at one point I got to one of the last bosses and just threw all three of my special moves at it to have it down to 1/8 of its health already, but I guess that's the luck of the draw with the character you get. At first I didn’t like that you couldn’t select your character and they were just randomly given to you but I think because some make boss battles really easy it’s generally a good idea otherwise you’d just blaze through the parts of the game that are meant to be a challenge.

There is an online mode which allows up to four players, I have unfortunately not been able to find a game and with the slow down I feel I would probably prefer to be playing alone anyway, but I think if you've got a few friends who also own the game the mayhem that'd occur because of the amount of shit going on screen at once could be quite fun.

The game really isn't a long game, you could beat it in a few hours if you played non-stop but you can tell a lot of time and effort went in to it. I will say that although the game felt short overall I would like a save function when you're already part way through a level, the levels are broken down into stages and I've found I need to head out while on the last stage of a level and because of that I had to return back to it and start again. The last level of the game is where I had the most issues with this as it has about triple the amount of stages in it, most of which are filled with a number of bosses.

It was great for that level to have that form of challenge and really helped the game come to a close, but I think the reason I found it to be such a challenge was again due to the slow down, I'm talking like 1 frame per second and some points just because there was so much going on at one time, this really made it difficult to know where you were landing or how to dodge certain projectiles.

I find I really enjoy Devolver Digital games, in fact most of my PS4/VITA library is full of them, I’m really fond of the art-style that most of them go for as it’s pixelated and reminds me of playing consoles like the SEGA, I think I got in to them at first with the first Hotline Miami and when looking at their line up for the next few years I think I’ll be supporting them for a lot longer if they (and the developers) continue to keep up the good work.

Overall I’m glad I picked this game up on PS+, I did want to play it for a long time when I first  heard about it during the Game Jam but I’m not really in to playing on PC and have not touched Steam in years. I wouldn’t say this is the best game I’ve ever played on PS+ because quite frankly it isn’t, It’s a mediocre title but its great in short bursts. However if you’re looking for something that’s similar and overall a lot better I would recommend you give Super Time force a try, specifically on the PS4 as it has the most amount of content.

I would like to see a sequel if they ever made one with a few improvements here and there, but I'm generally interested in what these developers will come up with next, whatever it is I'm sure if they learn from this game they will make a great title.