Max: The Curse of Brotherhood

Filled with good puzzles and based on a nice control system, Max: The Curse of Brotherhood is a nice platform game flawed by low difficulty.

Max: Curse of the Brotherhood is overall a pretty good game, with some fantastic puzzle mechanics and a nice adventure feeling. Unfortunately the game is too basic for its own best, and the moments you will remember are few.

Max The Curse of Brotherhood is a fun and challenging 2.5D platformer that will be able to keep you attached to the pad for its entire duration, despite too many bugs and an unstable framerate.

Max: The Curse of Brotherhood is visually appealing and excellently paced, but its frustrating controls and legacy assets peg this as a game released a little prematurely.

The constant flow of new sights and well-thought-out puzzles that make up the bulk of the game provide more than enough motivation to see this rescue attempt through to the end.

It’s not the kind of game that will be remembered down the track, but in the here and now it’s filling a certain gap in the One’s line-up more than adequately.

Visually pleasant, Max: The Curse of Brotherhood is a clever platformer with brilliant gameplay mechanics. Even if a few sections can feel a bit frustrating and Max's controls are a bit disappointing, this game offers a good challenge for those who like puzzles. Xbox One owners should definitely have a look at it.

It's a game that makes you feel smart and, unlike Limbo, never surprises you with unforeseeable traps: there is always an opportunity to stand back, assess and, finally, execute.

It's a shame that developer Press Play couldn't create a stronger control mechanic, because the game is filled to the brim with creative puzzles and varied levels. Whenever we think Max reaches its full potential, the control scheme comes in and holds in back.

For what it is, Max: The Curse of Brotherhood is a charming, yet rather restrictive 2D, puzzle-platformer. Despite its limited scope, lack of replayability and depth, there’s some fun to be had here, if only for a while.

Max: The Curse of Brotherhood doesn’t break any new ground, and should have had the option of using the Kinect for the drawing mechanic, but still delivers. It has rough edges, but overcomes most of them because the platforming is done well.

It will take casual players around seven hours to complete, but there is little reason to come back to the game after the climactic finish, which makes this title difficult to recommend to everyone.

Max: Curse of the Brotherhood is a decent platformer with fun gameplay and a variety of puzzles for you to solve.

Despite its finely crafted and quite enjoyable drawing and physics puzzles, I found Max: The Curse of Brotherhood to be more frustrating than fun.

I don’t think Max: The Curse of Brotherhood is devoid of value, but I certainly don’t think it’s something to rush right out and buy—unless, as an Xbox One early adopter, you’re content with a passable platformer that possesses a handful of quasi-memorable moments to tide you over until Titanfall. And for anyone jonesing for a platformer, Max represents only a quick, short-lived fix.

So many moments in The Curse of Brotherhood are hampered by a sense that a square peg is being shoved into a round hole. All of its great ideas are dwarfed by the fact that it doesn’t feel good to play. The game tries to make invoke a sense of creation, but it’s more akin to fumbling in the dark.

Max The Curse of Brotherhood is a mixed bag. It looks fantastic, it can be fun, even exhilarating plus some of the puzzles are totally wicked (in a good way). Sadly though it is unable to be anymore than something reasonably priced to play on your Xbox One over Christmas if you have completed your Xbox One back catalogue from launch day.

Max: The Curse of Brotherhood benefits immensely from attractive art design, and that is supplemented by a variety of puzzles that are initially quite satisfying before finally wearing out their welcome near the end. Consider taking the plunge if you're itching to dive into another pretty platformer, but otherwise you're probably better off waiting for a different curse to come along.

A child would almost certainly find themselves too frustrated to finish it, and an adult determined to muscle their way through isn't likely to be engaged by the world or story.

Much like the sibling rivalry at its core, Max: The Curse of Brotherhood is a game of extremes. The game can get so frustrating you'll wish it would just go away, but then on the next puzzle everything works as it should and it becomes difficult not to fall for its charms.

A solid idea but the implementation, especially on a standard controller, doesn’t really work – leaving with you increasingly little incentive to save Max or his brother.

With unintuitive controls, puzzle mechanics that’ve been done better elsewhere, and a story with the depth of a coloring book, it’s hard to stay invested in this short adventure.

It's gorgeous in motion, and can be a satisfying little puzzle-platformer, but prepare yourself for some trial-and-error, garnished with repetition.