For a couple of plumbers, Mario and Luigi hardly get their hands dirty. For kids and the 1%, that kind of fantasy may fly, but what about the rest of us? Luckily, the indie developers 3D Attack have made The Other Brothers, which is something like Super Mario set in the middle of Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx is Burning. Instead of coins, you collect ghetto doves. Instead of mushrooms, you hop on top of chain-smoking mobsters. And instead of Mario and Luigi, you control a couple of underfed mechanics named Jim and Joe. (Is it a coincidence that they share a name with the ubiquitous New York graffiti artist Jim Joe, whose studied sloppiness hearkens back to the early 80s in the Rotten Apple?)
The Other Brothers came out last week on iOS, and it's an ugly little beauty, hard to look at, hard to control, hard to listen to, and impossible to put down.