Floigan Brothers Preview

The idea of the oddly paired comedic tag team is as old as George and Gracie. While such pairings have moved from vaudeville stages to late-night talk shows, cartoons, and The Odd Couple reruns, the endearing quality of two mismatched characters - opposed, but lovable - remains identifiable and interesting. Specific to video games, complementary mates are used to enhance gameplay as well as add some humor to the challenge. The buddy system, of course, is nothing new; the PlayStation has the mostly forgettable Pandemonium, and Nintendo has the much more accomplished Banjo Kazooie. Sega hopes its upcoming buddy game, Floigan Brothers, will follow in the footsteps of the latter. Visual Concepts, which is so far best known for its sports-related efforts, is designing a game that merges unpredictable and varied gameplay with an interaction between partners that's funny, endearing, and very ambitious.

The Floigan brothers are Hoigle and Moigle, co-proprietors of a junkyard. Hoigle is the diminutive brains of the duo, while Moigle is the hulking, dimwitted brawnThe ensuing plot involves the various misadventures that occur during the construction of the brothers' magical invention. The central antagonist in the game is the conniving Baron Malodorous. Intent on claiming the junkyard for his own sinister practices, he first attempts to buy out the business from Hoigle and Moigle, and failing that, he decides to capture the yard by force. To this end, the Baron enlists the aid of stray mercenary kittens - knowing that the big brother Floigan, Moigle, loves the small furry animals. As Hoigle, you must find unique ways of motivating big brother to do the dirty work of getting the cats and the baron out of your hair while you finish the invention that'll ensure peace in the junkyard forever.

As you may already be surmising, motivating Moigle isn't just manipulating buttons and pushing him in various directions; rather, Floigan Brothers will challenge you to come up with unique solutions to the game's variety of puzzles. Imagination is the key to solving most enigmas. Examples include taunting Moigle, making him cry a small lake of tears so that you can cross over a floating bridge in the junkyard, or making your big brother so angry he throws you around the map to otherwise unreachable areas. The brothers aren't always so full of animosity, though - teamwork between the two is often necessary to solve the game's conundrums. When a particularly disagreeable cat begins launching bombs around the junkyard, you'll have to convince Moigle to fight back against the kitten. If Moigle takes too many high-explosive bombs in the face, though, he becomes demoralized and will need a Patton-like pep talk from you to get up the spirit to go back out and try again.