Max: The Curse of Brotherhood
Review
It's like Labyrinth, but with Google
by Jonathan Fortin
reviewed on PC
Of *Course* There's A Lava Level...
Max has a series of tied-and-true sidescrolling environments, all of which we've seen before. There's the desert level, the forest level, the lava level, etc. They all have their own nice visual touches—a cave level features eyes that light up in the dark but hide from light, for example—and they all introduce one or two appropriate new gameplay elements. But none of the environments seem terribly original. Many of them feel as though they're just going through the motions. They're fun, and they do their job, adding just enough new gameplay elements to justify the length, but that's it.
The same can be said about the enemies, or the cutscenes, or even the basic platforming gameplay. They serve their function, and do what they're doing well enough. But there's a dearth of originality. It feels more constructed to be a product rather than a work of art, as though whenever possible they were going for the safest possible option.
It also feels as though the developers were putting all their eggs into the Magic Marker basket, since it is the game's one original feature. But since the Magic Marker is so twitchy, it ends up feeling like a crude gimmick.
A Not-So-Heroic Little Boy
The game is clearly designed with kids in mind, from its colorful graphics (which are actually quite beautiful) to its offbeat soundtrack (which occasionally verges on annoying). But this is most evident from its immature protagonist.
Let's be honest: Max is a little snot. He has Jimmy Neutron hair, and is so full of himself that he has a big “M” on his shirt. He'd probably wear a shirt with his own face on it if he could. So you can definitely believe that he's the sort of kid who'd be selfish enough to get his brother kidnapped by monsters. Unfortunately, this also means that he's rather annoying as far as game protagonists go.
Max's voice actor is fine when he's grunting or wailing in fear, but whenever he speaks words he reminds me of Anakin Skywalker in The Phantom Menace: a ten year old boy who can't really act. It becomes grating when he tells enemies snotty things like “I can fool you! See, told you so!” Whenever he uproots an evil eye, the game enters cutscene mode, interrupting the gameplay, and Max says something odd, like “Nudge nudge!” (I guess because the eyes wink?) or “Quit it!” Presumably he's saying this to the eyes, but since he says it only after uprooting the eyes, it almost seems like he's telling the player to quit the game.
Max isn't a bad game. It has some fun puzzles, pretty graphics, and in general things work as they should. Almost everything about it is perfectly decent. But the game never aspires to be more than decent. It never tries to be memorable, and never takes any risks. Everything seems on-the-nose, from the cliché environments to the Labyrinth-esq storyline, and the Marker mechanic is executed too awkwardly to make up for all that.
On the Xbox One, a platform with very few games currently available, it makes perfect sense to play a game like Max. But on the PC, there is just too little to make it stand out.
7.0
fun score
Pros
Pretty graphics; some excellent puzzles; decent all-around
Cons
Clumsy Magic Marker controls; annoying protagonist; safe, cliché creative choices
