Brave: A Warriors Tale (Xbox 360) Review

Posted by Todd Vote on 10.10.2009

A new Game from the Xbox 360's Family Games. Is it truly fun for all, or just a frustrating mess?

Title: Brave: A Warriors Tale
Publisher: SouthPeak Games
Developer: Collision Studios
Genre: Action Adventure
Players: 1
Rated: E for Everyone



Brave: A Warriors Tale is a game that plays out mostly in the form of flashbacks from an old Native American Chief telling the young children in his tribe the story of Brave, and the Wendigo. The Wendigo is a fierce mythical creature that people could transform into, or that could possess humans. Those who practiced cannibalism were at a greater risk to cross paths with the Wendigo. So we have a Chief who sits down to tell the children of the village, more specifically a young boy named Courage about how he fought the Wendigo and saved the village. Most of the game plays out in flashback form, with certain parts taking place “currently” in the story.

Graphics:

While nothing particularly mind blowing, the game is fine to look at. The characters are drawn with more of a cartoon style look to them. The characters all have exaggerated body parts and features. Picture the character models from Tak and the Power of Juju, and you will get a good idea of the art style present in Brave. Nothing looks terrible, but at the same time it all seems a bit out-dated. Your kids will love it, but ultimately there is nothing here graphically that hasn't been seen a million times before.



Your kids however, are going to love the look of this game. Brave and the rest of the characters look like a Saturday morning CGI animated cartoon. The voices and animations used will further cement that Saturday morning cartoon feel for you. The animations are exaggerated, and somewhat humorous at times.

Gameplay:

The gameplay is simplistic in execution, and that is not a bad thing for a family game. Along the way Brave will learn new abilities and earn new weapons like a tomahawk, and a bow & arrow. Brave also has access to a magical sort of rage power that makes him more powerful when dealing with foes. This power also allows him to collect health and energy from plants without having to smash them first. This function is not as much of a difference maker as you would expect. From what I noticed, Brave seemed to have more snap in his attacks, but I didn't notice it taking less hits to take down an enemy.

The gameplay is not limited to just playing as Brave, as certain areas in the game will allow you to travel by canoe, and other allow you to travel by eagle. There is even an area where you are allowed to take the spirit of a bear and use it to dispose of some nasty wolves. Unfortunately these areas are too few in number to make a real impact on the game.

Brave utilizes a mini map very similar to GTA, in the fact that you have a circle in the corner of the screen, with the areas you need to visit highlighted in different colors dependant on the type of objective. This all sounds good in theory, but sometimes the map seemed broken. For instance, you could see where the things were, but the map is so general that you had to find your own shortcuts to get places. The mini map does not have the detail of some of your more mature titles would have. There were even times when the map was blocked off completely. I wasn't able to find a reason for this to happen, other than perhaps I was not in the area I was supposed to be in, or the area hadn't been activated yet. Could be any number of things, and at times could make you doubt if you are heading in the right direction or not.



Now for the really bad; this game utilizes some of the absolute worst camera work I have ever seen in a game. There are times where you just completely lose track of your character, because the camera is shooting you from inside a rock face, or the other side of a tee-pee. This problem was compounded by the fact that when it happened, you would be hard pressed to find an angle to see Brave, without moving. Moving creates new problems because you can't see where you are going and could potentially walk right off a cliff. The bad camera grew more and more frustrating as the game went on, and you were almost required to spin the camera to keep a good angle on the action. If it is sometimes frustrating for adults, how bad would it be for the children.

The camera is further aggravated by a bad aiming system. You are to use Left Trigger to lock onto a target, but getting it to lock onto the intended target is an animal of a different nature. This can get fairly aggravated, as the game doesn't always lock onto the closest enemy, which can be problematic when a wolf jumps on your face.

Bringing the gameplay down even further was the glitches in the game that would cause you to just fall through the bottom of the map for no apparent reason. There were several times where I was just skippin' along, and all the sudden Brave would just disappear. Next thing you know, the game has restarted you and you're left wondering what the heck just happened. This glitch was bad enough that early in the game I glitched through a doorway that I wasn't supposed to have access to until I lit it on fire. Sure I got in, but getting back out required a reboot of the Xbox, in order to go back to a time before I was locked in a wall. Again, if this was taxing on the patience of an adult, imagine what the frustration level would be for a child trying to play this game.

The final element I want to discuss gameplay wise is the platforming on offer here. The platforming here works well for the most part, Brave is able to make the jumps required about 75% of the time. What about the other 25%? Well, I'm glad you asked. This other 25% is just completely frustrating. It seems like some of the jumps are just out of range of being able to make it safely, and you have to time your jump position exactly perfect. Alternately, there are spots where the jump distance is not the problem but the area you have to land in seems to be just too damn small. When executing a double jump, Brave will roll out of the jump when he lands. It's a neat little visual that is a rather large detriment to the gameplay. If you jump to far onto a platform, Brave will roll right off the other side, and there is nothing you can do about it, but try again when the game reloads. This held especially true in the later stages of the game where things are supposed to get a bit difficult, but that was ridiculous. I am not afraid to admit that there was one jump in particular that held me up for a little over a day. Granted it might not have if I wouldn't have gotten pissed and shut off the game on several occasions.

I feel like I should state here that if you are looking for a specific game to get your child into gaming, this is not the one to use. With so many frustrating gameplay elements, this one would surely turn the child off before they have a chance to get into the somewhat appealing story the game presents.

Sound

The sound, oddly enough is probably the most well done part of the game. The music is done fairly well, and does feature a certain Native American flare. But the real meat of the sound department is surprisingly the voice acting. While being nothing spectacular, each voice actor turns in a perfectly acceptable performance. From Courage to Brave, the voice work is done fairly well. You can hear the strain in your characters voice when have to jump long distances, and everything fits in fairly well within the context of the game. Now how well the voice acting syncs up with the lip movement is a different story.



Fun Factor

Brave quickly loses it's fun once you realize that their are not near enough enemies or different elements involved in the game to keep it fun from start to finish. I think the only game I have ever seen with fewer enemies to fight may have been the new Prince of Persia game. There is just not much here to go up against. When you add in the lack of variety when it comes to enemies, and the game loses any appeal it may have had in the first place.

Certainly there are parts where the developers thought to try and vary up the gameplay to keep people interested. However the ideas fall flat, and I'll tell you why. The boating is just incredibly touchy control wise, and it can make it difficult to make it down stream at times. The game features more frustration than any sort of fun.

Lasting Appeal

If your kids love it, the game is tolerable to play once in a while, but it is nothing that I would use to try and make a child love video games. From outdated graphics, and a glitchy map, to the ability to fall through what should be solid ground and the badly placed platforming. The game just doesn't hold much appeal past playing with your child.

Having said that, after I played through the game, I let my younger cousin play it and he seemed to have fun with it. So as I stated, if you want to play with the kids, it may serve as a good title, but other than that, don't spend your hard earned money on this one unless you really like achievements.

Graphics	4.0	Outdated, but a nice cartoony feel that the kids should enjoy. The graphics are further brought down by some clipping issues and some fall through the floor issues.
Gameplay	2.0	Very simplistic. There are far to few enemies to enjoy the game as anything other than a tutorial for young gamers.
Sound	6.0	Probably the best aspect of the game. The sound is fitting and the voice acting is fairly well done.
Lasting Appeal	3.0	There is really no reason to play the game after beating it. If you are an achievement hunter, make sure you get everything on one play through, as I didn't notice the game giving me a chance to go back in once the final boss was defeated.
Fun Factor	2.0	Again, nothing to fun about this. Bad platforming, and shoddy controls will almost surely turn off any youngster that may be interested in the game.
Overall	3.4   [ Bad ]