The Best Games of PAX East 2014: Broforce

Broforce. Wow.

Broforce is a blast, an 80s-loving blood-soaked ‘Murica-cheering sugar rush with deceptively tight gameplay and clever design. These aren’t levels that begin and end - in so many ways, they explode and don’t stop exploding until the level fades to black. Playing with three others, this game seems chaotic almost beyond comprehension but somehow always works. The strength of Broforce is that it is so goddamn hilarious and could easily wrangle fifteen bucks out of many based on that, but deep down this is a truly awesome side-scrolling shoot-em-up which only gets better the more people you have blasting along with you.

Of the games we all played at PAX East 2014, Broforce was among the few on which the staff’s present was nearly unanimous: this was simply one of the most fun games on display, in a time of the industry when just trying to “be fun” seems like an act of rebellion. And honestly, that’s the only way this game would ever work: laughing at the competition, lost in its own gleeful madness while ripping the surroundings to shreds, hoisting American flags and high-fiving its fellow bros along the way.

Broforce was one of our absolute favorite games of PAX East 2014, and we have little doubt that it deserves to be declared one of our Best of Show games.