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      English
      Gamereactor
      reviews
      Broforce

      The Expendabros

      Could this be one of the greatest movie tie-ins of all time?

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      As far as movie tie-ins go, The Expendables and Broforce are a match made in heaven. Broforce is a pixelated explosion-fest, rammed full of action movie nostalgia and strewn with love letters to some of the greatest/cheesiest films of the last thirty years.

      The Expendables (or in this case, The Expendables 3) is pretty much the same, only in celluloid form; homage to the golden years of action movies, with many of the genre greats making appearances in what can only be described as fan service of the highest order. Whether these films are any good or not is a debate for another time and place.

      The existing alignment between Broforce and The Expendables has manifested itself in the perfect union that is The Expendabros; a short free game that landed on Steam last night, and that features a handful of themed missions and movie-related characters. It plays similarly to Broforce, very similarly in fact, but there's enough differences here, from the characters to some of the visual tweaks, for it to feel like a standalone project.

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      We've been playing Broforce since it was first released as a browser-based Brototype, and have since sampled the delights of the game proper, as a standalone client and again following its launch under the banner of Devolver Digital on Steam Early Access. In a nutshell; we like it. A lot. Therefore we were really interested to take a look at The Expendabros and see how it shaped up.

      Happily, it doesn't disappoint. Sure, it's short as hell, but given the fact that it's free you'd have to be pretty miserly to use that as a criticism (other than to say that we wanted more). There's a handful of missions that can be played either alone or with friends (up to three) in local co-op, however there's no online mode as far as we can tell, and none of the other modes or features that are present in the main game. Still, it's a nice little package and, if you're new to Broforce, an excellent demo for the full game.

      The game itself plays almost exactly the same as its Early Access counterpart. That means you start with one bro, and then unlock others by rescuing caged characters that are dotted around the levels. The more characters you rescue, the more characters you unlock. A successful rescue changes the character you're controlling and banks you an extra life, and for the most part it's a no-brainer to get the additional life and change up, but sometimes when you're in the zone with one character, it can be tempting to press on without switching.

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      Each of the characters has a standard attack that befits their cinematic counterpart. Playing as parodies of Sly and Arnie and the rest of The Expendables cast, you blast, bomb, chop and flame your way through enemy troops, attack dogs, and mechanical monstrosities. Each character also comes packing a limited-use secondary attack that also embodies their movie-based personality. We'll not go into details here, because as with the original game, much of the joy of Broforce and The Expendabros is discovering new characters and experimenting with their powers.

      The environments are pretty much entirely destructible, and there's explosive barrels and canisters that can both help and hinder you on your way. Like Broforce, there's a satisfaction to be had from destroying all in your path, with explosions and destruction unfolding all around. At times it can be utter chaos, and hard to make out what's going on. Your weapons turn enemies into a bloody pulp, and that level of carnage follows you throughout. Missions are linear, with checkpoints marking progress, and each level is punctuated by a final flag that, when raised, triggers a helicopter extraction and a bloody roll-call of destruction. It's nasty, it's violent, it's bloody, but it's hugely entertaining and wickedly fun.

      The single-player probably won't take you long to complete, but you can go back and play it with a friend or two via the co-op mode. Here the on-screen confusion increases with each player that's added to the mix. We played it with just one human bro, and we inadvertently blew each other up on several occasions. That's where the additional challenge comes from in co-op play, not from increasing the ability of the opponents put in front of you (and what would be the point - they can already kill you with just one hit), but from reduced visibility thanks to additional on-screen destruction, and from environmental dangers triggered by your partner's attacks. When in co-op you can bring lost bros back to life via a rescue, and if you're up to full strength then any characters that are subsequently freed from their shackles are then stored as free lives for when they're needed later on.

      The characters that star in this mini-campaign are thoughtfully crafted from those that feature in the films, and as such fans of the movies will want to check it out. It's a great use of the license. It's also worth checking it out even if you have no intention of watching the film, because like Broforce, it's hugely entertaining. It's also, as we mentioned earlier, completely free to play (and will remain available until the end of the year).

      All in all The Expendabros does exactly what you'd expect; it brings a bit of Broforce to the movie franchise, and at the same time acts a wonderful advert for a game that's still on the receiving end of spit and polish via Early Access. Yes the offering here is a little shallower than it is in the main game, but when your getting something for nothing, it'd be rude to complain too loudly about that.

      Broforce
      08 Gamereactor UK
      8 / 10
      +
      + Hugely entertaining, great use of the license, free
      -
      - A little on the shallow side, too short (we wanted more)
      overall score
      is our network score. What's yours? The network score is the average of every country's score

      Related texts

      0
      BroforceScore

      Broforce

      REVIEW. Written by Mike Holmes

      "It might not be particularly subtle, but it's definitely entertaining."

      0
      The ExpendabrosScore

      The Expendabros

      REVIEW. Written by Mike Holmes

      "It brings a bit of Broforce to the movie franchise, and at the same time acts a wonderful advert for the game."



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