Brigador is Difficult

War...War Never Changes

Its a meme at this point. Video game journalists will decry anything north of Angry Birds to be the next Dark Souls. We're drowning in Souls-like games now, much to the disappointment of actual Souls players that I assume eat bullets for breakfast and wash them down with liquid mercury. Games are too hard, maybe it's true. I can appreciate the consideration of games that advertise a higher base-difficulty and integrate it into the game's identity, it does make it easier to assess whether or not I'll even bother attempting to play a game that has a learning curve steeper than calculus, granted, I find some satisfaction in reading the complaint articles written by bitter journalists that expected to sleepwalk through another triple A snooze-fest. Difficulty, in my opinion, is un-evenly spread across the genres. I find RTS, Fighting and Shmup games to be utterly soul crushing at times, that's why I take genre into account as well. I've already bought far too many games outside my comfortable fps genre, one of them just so happens to be Brigador. 

Like a moth drawn to the purple neon glow, I stumbled across Brigadors alluring Steam page and was treated to a tantalizing B-roll of isometric third-person actions and blaring synthwave music. There's a boomer appeal to both the music and graphics, even now I find the game's aesthetic to be tantalizing, like a nice hard candy on a cold day, or predictable television programs with mild anecdotes, yeah, I'm getting old. One glance at this oddly named game and was only a matter of time before it found stomped it's way onto my Steam wishlist and later joined the backlog, a place where dreams turn to nightmares. Brigador starts with a B, so it somehow rose to the top of my complex backlog sorting algorithms. Turns out Brigador is a lot deeper than my caffeine addled brain could comprehend and I was about to pay for it.

The Stellar Jockeys offer the mercy of twelve tutorial missions, four for each vehicle type. There's the matter of firing arcs, tank controls, and special equipment. All of these vehicles and weapons can vary from one loadout to another, each with their own quirks and benefits, though there's no 'god mech' that just let me crash around and realize my fantasies of property damage. Isometric games can have janky controls, every vehicle has tank controls, either screen relative or classic depending on your preference. Aiming your gun is going to involve paying some attention to firing arcs and enemy height, especially if they're an anti-grav type that floats about, they require some attention to make sure those bullets aren't flying under or over their giddy, hovering selves. I did play the tutorial missions, they helped me to play as far as I did, but I sure didn't get used to the movement controls, by the end of the campaign I was still driving backwards by accident, foolhardy in a game that accounts for frontal armor strength. 

The campaign kicks off with a bang, finally there's four pre-loadouts to choose from instead of the single vehicle tutorial missions. There's always a mech, tank, or hovercraft to choose, each with some pre-selected weapons to use, great. The initial missions aren't horribly difficult or complex. Shoot these guys, demolish these buildings etc. The mission structure actually stays beautifully simple, but simple doesn't mean easy. Every level has a list of secondary objectives too, a way to earn some additional cash by obliterating some targets of opportunity, usually coms towers, ammo depots, dictator statues and some unfortunate high-ranking vehicles. Money makes the world go around, so collecting it is a no-brainer. 

Obviously Brigador has a shop, capitalism flourishes even on the far off planet of Solo Nobre. Buy tanks, mechs, weapons and even the games own lore through the acquisitions menu. you can even unlock pie-plate man. Great, now we have a dual progression here, on one hand I'm winning the campaign missions, on the other hand I'm acquiring more and more assets to aid my chaotic crusade, fantastic! Now here's the catch; all these shiny new toys purchased from shady weapons dealer cannot be used in the campaign mode. That's right, the hundreds of millions in war materials are limited to the freelance mode, the arguably strongpoint of the game. Campaign missions are solely limited to the pre-determined four loadouts previously mentioned. When the game gets hard, it stays hard, and oh boy, does it ever get hard. 

Late in the campaign the difficulty doesn't ramp up, it spikes like my heart rate when I see my credit card bill. For a 'realtime tactics' game the enemies in Brigador only seem to have studied the Zerg school of war strategy. I sneaked and skulked around only to alert a massive wave of angry tanks that made a b-line to my position. The badguys are quick to alert and once they do there's not much short of orbital bombardment that would turn the tides in my favor. I think the term 'tactical withdrawal' is a braver label for the word 'retreat' so I withdrew like a cork from a champagne bottle more often than not. Maybe 'realtime horror tactics' is a more accurate description. Nevertheless, my efforts weren't in vain.

The later campaign missions in Brigador are pretty frustrating. I went from simply changing loadouts and trying different strategies to mindlessly throwing myself at missions over and over, yes I know the technical definition of the term 'insanity'. Insanity and success are strange bedfellows. I had finally won Brigador, whatever significance to the games plot were lost on me, I was elated, relieved, happy even. Now here's the big plot twist to my story, the one that ties everything together. I got the final campaign achievement. Hmmm, interesting.

Exhibit A 

If you've read this far you might just be as stubborn as me. The 'Find Your Exit' achievement held by only 2.5% of Brigador players. This can mean a number of different things, but the conclusion I've drawn is that while this game has an incredible number of positive reviews, it also has a massive retirement rate, evidence corroborated by my favorite site www.howlongtobeat.com. According to the website that says I'm a below average gamer, Brigador is a highly retired game, finished by only a minority of owners, like me. This really raises a deeper issue in videogame criticism, both the paid professionals and casual reviewers will score a game without finishing it. If a game can't be finished I think it should affect the final score, but that's just me. 

So the moral of the story is; Brigador is a niche game with a mass appeal, that's my problem with it. From the very genre to hilariously low completion rate, Brigador something of a paradox, everybody loves it, but no-one can finish it. Is this the fault of the devs? should they make their game easier? No. Games are art and we need artists to retain their integrity more now than ever. Just because I had a hard time doesn't mean the product is flawed, our view of the product is flawed. Brigador is a harsh mistress that stomps on the balls of filthy casuals, such as myself, with gigantic mech-stilettos. The game rewards the ultra mech jockeys for delving deep into the gameplay mechanics and unlockable lore, not the curious passerby that thinks giant robots are cool, we get obliterated like the separatist legions of Solo Nobre. Hey, it happens. I can't be bitter about it, I did finish the game after all, do I get a cookie? There's easier games ahead thankfully, but until I win them, keep strong Comrades!