Recent reviews by Colonel Mustache

Took me exactly an hour to 100% (the extra two minutes was watching the credits!). Short, sweet, and absolutely worth the dollar. It's like Kirby's Adventure, but without the ability to infinitely jump...Which makes some of its platforming surprisingly tricky! But you have infinite lives and checkpoints are fairly common, so it's never too frustrating. I'd happily buy a similarly-sized/priced sequel in a heartbeat.

You can literally punch Satan so hard he explodes.

I could stop the review right there, 'nuff said. Except no, there's so much more to it than that. Broforce is more than just a one-track gag, it's a love letter to 80s and 90s action heroes wrapped in an homage to Contra, Metal Slug, and with a little Worms for good measure.

At first glance, the game may come off as simply a novelty. But they didn't just take a generic character, slap the name Rambro on him, and call it good. Every single character in the cast of over 30 has a great deal of love and detail worked into them. Each character has a unique primary attack, a special attack, and a melee attack. Rambro has a trusty machine gun and versatile grenades, whereas Bro Heart has a claymore and the ability to scare enemies by screaming at the top of his lungs. If a character is played by Van Damme, you better believe he can deliver split kicks to terrorists' faces.

Therein lies Broforce's "gimmick:" You start each level with a single life and a random Bro you've unlocked so far. Freeing a Bro trapped in a cage will grant you another life, while also swapping your character to another random Bro. Thus, you have to decide between keeping your current character, or getting the extra life. It's a simple mechanic when you get down to it, but it adds a huge amount of replay value to the game - You'll rarely beat a given level the same way twice.

Each character, given that they're completely different, has their own upsides and downsides. Brocketeer may lack the raw firepower of the other characters, but his jetpack lets him rocket punch dudes and make crazy jumps. MacBrover's dynamite may be less straightforward than a gun, but timed right can cause absolute carnage. Of the gigantic cast, there are maybe one or two characters I try to avoid, and even they can get the job done.

Part of Broforce's charm is in its sheer hilarity and the number of things you can do. I once threw a guy at another guy, killing them both...The second guy was a suicide bomber, however, so he exploded, sending a dog flying through a door, which killed another guy as it opened. You can kill a guy by hitting him in the head with a flash grenade. You can kill Satan by throwing another Satan at him (the latter Satan also dies). You can throw your claymore, which decapitates everyone in its path. Someone out of range may try to shoot you, but your claymore, now stuck in the ground, will reflect the bullets right back into his evil face.

That's not to say Broforce is completely without faults. In all the carnage and chain-reactions of destruction, it is pretty easy to die, especially when most characters die from a single shot. There are definitely some deaths that feel like they were unavoidable, such as an explosive barrel falling on top of me from offscreen. The reason why I completely forgive this, however, is because of how fun the whole thing is. Death usually has little consequence, so an annoying moment here and there are easily remedied by the barrels of laughs in between. It's definitely a game that's more fun than frustrating. As someone who's not particularly hardcore, the game has never been so frustrating that it made me want to stop playing.

Multiplayer makes the game even more fun and more chaotic. Depending on the level, adding more players can make the game easier (because of the multiplied firepower) or harder (because of the added chaos and thin-spread lives), but almost always makes it more fun. You can high five one another (triggering slow motion), flex together, and if you really want you can drop the rescue chopper on their head. Everyone starts the next level with exactly 1 life anyway, so messing around at the end of the level is surprisingly consequence-free.

Along with the main levels, there are challenge levels, which when completed unlock powerups in the rest of the game. You can call in an "All-American Supply Drop", aka a nearly-invincible mech with the american flag plastered on in place of a windshield, or take some steroiVITAMINS that let you throw dudes like Superman and scare enemies with your homoerotic grunts.

At the end of the level, after you've shot Satan in the face (or punched him so hard he exploded, or thrown him off a cliff, or beaten him to death with his own minions, or scared him so hard he jumped to his death), you (and your friends, on the rare occasion you coordinate everyone's jumps correctly) board the rescue chopper and fly off into the distance, as a rockin' victory theme plays and the entire level explodes for no discernible reason.

That's a perfect image to sum up Broforce: Over the top, ridiculous, nonsensical fun. It would have been very easy for the developers to take the game's concept and turn it into a one-track novelty that doesn't actually amount to much. But Free Lives is the prime example of what a game developer should be. They didn't just put time, money, and effort into this game: They put love into it. They clearly weren't just trying to make a quick buck, they made Broforce because they loved the things they based it off and wanted to share that with other people. Broforce is a game that's a great idea in theory and an even better idea in reality. It is, quite simply, one of the greatest games I've ever played.

Play this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ game.