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Rush Bros (PC) Review

 
Rush Bros (PC) Review
Rush Bros (PC) Review
Rush Bros (PC) Review

 
At a Glance...
 

Formats: PC
 
Year:
 
Final Score
8.0
8/ 10


User Rating
no ratings yet

 

We liked?


  • Visually and aurally appealing
  • Racing element is fun

Not so much?


  • Do people really play "couch co-op" on PCs?


Final Fiendish Findings?

Rush Bros is a music-oriented platform racer from independent game developer XYLA Entertainment where to goal is to get through each level’s obstacles and traps in the quickest time possible

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Posted April 19, 2013 by

 
Full Fiendish Findings...
 
 

One of my favorite platforming titles of all time is Super Meat Boy, a simple-looking yet tough-as-nails game that harkens back to the days of really difficult video games.  While Rush Bros isn’t quite to the level of complexity or brute-savageness when it comes to the difficulty, there is something about it that made me think of Super Meat Boy when starting it up.  (That’s a compliment, if you’re wondering.)

In actuality, Rush Bros is less on pinpoint accurate jumps and timing like SMB, and more of a straight-up platform racer, encouraging the player to make it through each level’s obstacle course as quickly as possible.

It’s easy to learn, and difficult to master, but the controls are pretty straightforward.  Outside of the directional controls your (for lack of a more appropriate name) Rush Brother only has to worry about sliding and jumping.  Dying in Rush Bros is also quite forgiving.  If you miscalculate a jump and fall to your doom, you’ll usually reappear on solid ground a few spaces from where you met your fate.

Getting through the first couple of levels is pretty straight-forward.  You’ll jump over spike-filled pits, flip switches – you know, the typical platforming tasks.  As you navigate your way through Rush Bros’ 30 levels, you’ll find yourself up against more obstacles, trickier traps, and more involved puzzles.

Rush Bros has a really cool style to it, mixing vibrant and contrasting visuals with thumping electronic music and beats.  The bold silhouettes of the levels’ foregrounds, mixed with the softer and more natural styles in the backgrounds, offers a nice separation between gameplay area and scenery.

Rush Bros (PC) Review

There are several different game modes – you can play by yourself (and race against your ghost-versions of your previous best score), you can play split-screen with another player if you’re the sharing type (one using the keyboard and the other using a controller), or you can jump online using Steamworks Integration to play against others.

If you’re not a big fan of Rush Bros’ deejay-themed electronic music, you can use your own MP3s.  In addition to listening to your own music, the different melodies and beats will make for unique stylized environments.

I hope the developers at XYLA Entertainment appreciate my sense of humor, as I tested this feature out by swapping the Rush Bros soundtrack with the crooning love songs of a Mr. Barry Manilow. ;)

Rush Bros (PC) Review

Rush Bros is one of the first Steam Greenlight titles.  Steam Greenlight is a system that is community supported to pick new games to be released on the Steam service for the PC.  Developers post information, screenshots, and video for their game in hopes to gather enough support and interest from the community to be selected for distribution on Steam.  Steam Greenlight also encourages potential customers to give feedback during the game’s development process.

Rush Bros is only available for the PC, but seems like it might be simple enough to translated into a touch-screen style game for iOS and Android, without losing a lot of the precision controls, and would be an absolutely perfect fit on the Xbox Live Marketplace and PlayStation Network.

Rush Bros can be purchased for $14.99 directly from XYLA Entertainment’s website at MyXYLA.com.  If I had one complaint about the game, it’s that the price seems a little steep for a game with only 30 levels, most of which can be completed in a minute or two.  The price feels more appropriate on console-based marketplaces, as a digital download on the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3, for example. With the super-low deals for PC games each week on Steam and Amazon’s digital downloads though — and maybe it’s just me — it feels a bit overpriced.

Overall, it was a really fun experience, and if you’re a fan and supporter of independent gaming, don’t overlook XYLA Entertainment and Rush Bros!


Troy Benedict

 


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