Blood Brothers

Copyright : Gremlin Graphics | Reviewed by : Ritchardo

Hark and Kren are brothers with a score to settle. Their entire village has been wiped out by vicious space pirates while they were out on their new jet-bikes, presents for passing their recent exams from their now dead parents. They are the only ones left who can recover the villageâ??s gems from the pirateâ??s lair in the Mines of Scorpia and find retribution for the bloodshed.

Graphics

Two games for the price of one, Blood Brothers is a mix of futuristic driving and side-on arcade game both of which boast good, solid graphics.

The arcade game is viewed from a side on perspective and has a nice diversity of sprites and colours to make you want to keep exploring and see what is around the next corner. There is no scrolling, sadly, with the programmers opting for a flick-screen presentation instead which can make proceedings tricky in two-player mode if you accidentally move off screen, leaving your playing partner to fend for his or herself until they too can escape.

The jet-bike sequence is very colourful if a little basic and doesnâ??t really capture any kind of futuristic feel. The jet-bike also seems to move slowly and the backgrounds are a little uninspiring.

Sound

Standard explosions and gunshots are the order of the day for the arcade section while the jetbike game has a continuous drone, gunshots and a rising tempo dependant on what height you are travelling at.

The gunshots in the arcade section are neatly done with a nice echo to reflect the mines that the action takes place within.

Unfortunately the drone within the piloting section is grating and in the end becomes intolerable.

Gameplay

Blood Brothers was clearly written to be a two-player game and itâ??s certainly plenty of fun in that mode if you have two players of the same ability level playing. The mine exploration game is very hard to get to grips with and the aforementioned problem of people falling out of the screen can really accentuate the difficulty. In one-player mode this difficulty doesnâ??t just double, it trebles as you try to look after two characters at once using different controllers for both. Tricky.

As your characters use jet-packs to move around they are often thrown around by inertia and ricochet around like pinballs whenever you use your guns, this makes positioning extremely important and youâ??ll lose out a number of times before you master it.

To access the jet-bike game (essential to reach other parts of the mine) is simple. Just press fire on the take-off pads (they all look identical and you start the game off on one!) and away you go. This section takes quite a bit of getting used to as well but once you are familiar with the drift from the bikes and the layouts, it shouldnâ??t be too difficult to get to the different parts of the mines.

Another drawback to the game is the fact that each character only has one life so if you make one error then itâ??s game over although you can play on with one player but the game is nigh on impossible with two so itâ??s a waste of time, pretty much.

Having said that Blood Brothers is a very challenging and absorbing game that, once you get to grips with it, is plenty of fun for one but especially two players.