******SPOILERS ******
I will start by saying I was a huge fan of Brothers: A tale of two sons, this was the game worked on by the studios founders. I thought the environments were captivating, the gameplay and puzzles engaging and the story carried through nicely. I did not realise the that there was any link between the two titled until A way out was nearly out. I was hyped for the game before I knew this link, even more so after. I have put in around 4 hours of gameplay with my friend, the story feels like it is coming to a close but I could be wrong.
I will avoid spoilers where possible but it might be best to avoid this post until you have completed the game. First of all, I found it a little odd that the game was so hyped up and that I was swept up in this. It’s a game that allows players to experience a story driven game with another person, it does not feel like a ground-breaking idea yet it seems to be viewed as a breath of fresh air, a brave move almost. I think this speaks more about the consumers desire for a wider breadth of games than it does for Awo’s ground breaking ideas. The hype could come from the fact this is a game designed for co-op rather then it being an option, I still feel like this should be a pretty common idea.
As the game focuses so much on narrative it can’t help but invite a comparison with film, and television etc. Sadly, the writing does not stand up, at best its passable, a lot of the time its clunky and other times it seems like a go-to for how not to convey narrative in video games. The characters fall into tired tropes; School of hard knocks tough guy (Leo) and a white collar smart guy forced to turn crook (Vincent). This use of familiar characters invites further comparison and they just do not stand up, breaking bad and Shawshank redemption do this so much better. I found the characters motivations to be flimsy, Vincent is fine with choking out guards and police officers by the dozen yet he is meant to be a banker, at no point has he used his intelligence to solve problems. There is a torcher scene where Vincent happily gets involved with beating and threatening someone who he does not even know, it all just makes me feel disconnected from the characters. They are escaping from prison, there is a whole spectrum of emotion and aspects of the human condition to be explored, yet we have a heavy-handed drive for the two, they want to kill a baddie, they guy who got them both in prison. Whenever this baddie is shown he is doing something to confirm his status, killing people who will not make a deal with him, shouting at his henchmen etc, he lacks any sort of dimension as a character and I honestly feel indifferent towards him.
Almost the whole host of secondary characters are really lacking as well, not to mention the fact that I am escaping prison and yet I have not felt a real moment of tension or anticipation at any point. In part this is due to the weak writing and the fact that I am not overly invested in the characters but also the gameplay has so far not presented me with any instances that I was really worried about being caught. There is no unknown aspect to any of the stealth section, I am always in control, I always have a really good idea of what to do and its just a case of doing it. The lack of feeling could be due to the out of sequence narrative. The first shot you see is of the two characters on a plain having already escaped prison, cut scenes of this plane are sliced though the game are used for exposition, as the two characters chat about how they escaped.
I have offered a lot of criticisms do far but there are a lot of things this game does really well. Playing alongside someone through a story (All be it a weak one) is really interesting. You always see the other persons screen even when playing online (as I did) but I still enjoyed the first few times the characters caught a glamps of each other. All the puzzles involve co-operation, some more than others, occasionally it feels a little forced but for the most part it’s a lot of fun working together to achieve a goal, each taking a different role and helping each other out. Another part I really enjoyed was the calm sections, doing some fishing, crafting a spear, exploring a house, when it’s just the two characters together it feels like a lot of fun, sometimes it does not make sense but its still engaging. That calm explorative puzzle solving has a lot of Brothers: A tale of two sons in it, in Awo it’s even better as you are working with a real person, discovering and exploring together. The gameplay is not perfect and I will just say that I wish the vehicle sections were completely cut form the game, they stand out as being far below the rest of the game in terms of quality.
Its clear that this project is hugely more ambitious than their last game and it’s the studios first, I could forgive it so much if the story was a little better but I found it cringe most of the time and as someone who wants to create games I feel it embodied what’s wrong with storytelling in games. A story tacked onto a game, one compromised for the other, taking turn in this case with cut scenes tearing you away from gameplay and gameplay that compromising any logic the narrative had. I have been harsh with Awo and I do think it is still worth a play just for the fact that it does have some really nice moments and interesting gameplay aspects. I have held the bar high for this game as I wanted more from the creators, I wanted them to deliver more for the industry and for games in general.
JACK WIL 