All right, let’s cut to the chase by
starting this review off with the ending summary. Is Brutal Legend one of the
greatest games of all time? Probably not. Is Brutal Legend one of the best games
of the year? Have to say no. But is Brutal Legend a fun, thrilling, witty and
entertaining game? Absolutely. Brutal Legend doesn’t have to raise the bar to
still offer a fun game that will definitely please its audience.
To say that the expectations for
Brutal Legend were high is a huge understatement. First you have cult gaming
developer (and favorite of fanboys everywhere) Tim Schafer developing the game.
Next you have the wild and crazy Jack Black pegged to voice the lead character,
Eddie Riggs. Third the game is set in the “world of heavy metal” with all the
artwork looking like it appears straight out of heavy metal album covers.
Finally Brutal Legend contains a huge cast of legendary rock/metal artists
lending not only their voices (such as Lemmy, Ozzy and Rob Halford) but their
music to the game. For many of us Brutal Legend became the pinnacle of the heavy
metal music genre, finally getting its due in a proper video-game.
The premise of the game is a
complete metal opus that I’m sure could have been penned by countless metal
bands over the years. Eddie is a roadie for a modern-day “metal” band who
happens to be involved in an unfortunate stage accident. The stage accident has
thrown Eddie into an alternate universe where the world and it’s inhabitants
seemed to be based upon a culture of skulls, bones, blood, music, swords,
sorcery, head banging, et cetera. Almost every type of cliché you’ve seen in
metal videos or album covers make up the world of Brutal Legend. Eddie becomes
immediately involved in an uprising against the evil Lord Doviculus and it’s up
to Eddie to help rid this strange world of Doviculus.
Gameplay wise Brutal Legend seems to
have a case of multiple personalities. The game starts off just as I expected it
would, as a hack ‘n slash action game. Eddie can wield a huge axe or a guitar in
combat inflicting melee damage with the axe or casting spells with the guitar.
However, gradually the gameplay starts to shifts to a real-time strategy setup
with you commanding warriors on the battlefield. The commands are rather limited
with only four options such as rally around a specific location or attacking a
certain spot on the battlefield. You can still get down and dirty in combat if
you want by fighting in the trenches during the battles. What you’ll find is the
game usually keeps the heavy strategy elements limited to bigger battles while
the rest of the game will have you fighting solo.
Since you’re a roadie the actual RTS
moments are played out as a battle of the bands-type competition. No, not just
bands getting up to play and the judges deciding who the victor is. Instead your
base is a huge stage built by your crew to put on the ultimate metal show. Just
like any good metal show you need to have fans, which has an impact on the
resource management part of the gameplay. All of your resources are generated by
the number of fans you have under your “control.”
The fans are actually spirits that
are trapped beneath the world’s crust hoping to catch one more great metal show.
Each fan point on the map must be captured and built into a merchandise booth to
satisfy the fan’s desire for your band/faction. The more merchandise towers you
have under your control the more resources you can summon into battle. However,
the enemy can still attack and capture your booths if you’re not careful.
The resources are broken up into
various soldiers that you will unlock as you progress in the game. You’ll have
foot soldiers that can specialize in melee combat or range combat. Vehicles can
be summoned that can take and inflict more damage than the foot soldiers. There
are also other roadies that you can summon who are invisible to other units on
the field. Eddie has to perform a combo attack with them to take out certain
towers in the game.
When you’re near one of your units
you’ll see an icon in the bottom left corner of the screen telling you to press
the Y button. Holding down Y will have Eddie perform a special combo attack
based on that specific warrior. For example you can hop aboard a vehicle to
unleash a sonic attack with your guitar or you can throw warriors in the air to
cause massive ground damage. The combo attacks are a nice feature to get more
involved with the combat but their execution just never felt 100% precise. I
found myself holding down Y for several seconds without anything happening when
I was near several units. It seems the AI didn’t know which unit to select if
more than one unit was near me.
Since taking out your enemies’
towers and defending your towers are key parts of the game you’ll find that just
pointing your units to the right locations gets to be cumbersome at times. Your
units can be pointed to a beacon marker to get them across larger maps, but just
moving the beacon never seemed to be smooth. You hold down the LB to bring up
the beacon and then move it with the left analog stick. But if you’re not moving
to that part of the map with the right analog stick you’ll probably miss your
intended target. Just pressing the specific commands using the directional pad
also got a little confusing at time as well. I found myself longing for a mouse
and keyboard so I could click/drag my units to specific points instead of
shorting them to the wrong place.
Another part of the gameplay that
can help in the larger skirmishes are the spells that Eddie can cast. As I
mentioned earlier the guitar is used to cast spells during combat but there are
more powerful spells that you will discover throughout the game. Some of them
allow you to summon animals into battle or provide a temporary strength boost to
your units. Other spells you can use allow you to raise relics you find
throughout the world or to summon your car to make travel much easier. All of
these spells are played out in a mini-Guitar Hero type mode of pressing buttons
in a certain sequence to play a wicked guitar solo. Hitting all the buttons in
the correct sequence results in a perfect spell casting. Pressing the wrong
sequence will cause your guitar to overheat, which requires you to wait until
the guitar cools off before you can attempt the spell again.
Exploration is another key part of
Brutal Legend. Even with the RTS elements this is still an open-world game which
you are free to explore. Your car (called Deuce) will get you from point A to
point B rather quickly if you wish or you can take the world by foot. The relics
are one type of item to be on the lookout for since they can provide you with
additional spells to use. There are secondary missions scattered throughout the
world that you can take on as well. These secondary missions can vary from mini-RTS
battles to car races. If you successfully finish these missions you’ll earn
money for upgrades. There are other items that you will uncover that will
provide you with money to spend with the Guardian of Metal (played by Ozzy).
Upgrading Deuce is another key part
of the game that seemed to get overlooked during the actual gameplay structure.
The upgrades are required for you to even play some of the secondary missions.
Yet the progression of the game seems to have singular focus on the main story.
You can just keep playing the main story without even taking a second to explore
the rest of the world and the game really doesn’t provide any consequences. You
only get a tiny reminder from time to time to try the secondary missions. Yet as
soon as I stepped off the beaten path to try a secondary mission the game was
questioning why I didn’t upgrade the weapons on Deuce yet. “You haven’t upgraded
yet Mr. Riggs?” Well, no, I haven’t because I didn’t have to during the main
portion of the game.
To use a music/metal analogy for
Brutal Legend the game- there are plenty of great bands that put out a first
album that people enjoyed. Yet with each album the band got better and better
until one day the band put out their opus – the album they will be known for. I
hope Brutal Legend has this type of legacy. This first game is a good game that
will find its audience even if there are improvements that could have been made.
The unique RTS combat elements might not be for everyone but the overall world
and humor is incredible. For me I just wonder what else the band (Tim
Schafer/Double Fine) could do with another Brutal Legend game.
Gameplay: 8.0
While the one-on-one combat works well with some nice combos and tight controls
the RTS elements just feel disjointed at times.
Graphics: 8.5
The art style is simply fantastic with a combination of cartoony characters and
over the top dark/demonic heavy metal visuals. All of the characters have some
very impressive facial expressions that really help to portray the emotions and
humor of the characters. Unfortunately, the framerate was choppy at times with a
fair amount of pop-in. I played the game straight from the disc so I’m not sure
if installing the game would smooth the framerate issue.
Sound: 9.7
If there was ever a game that could deserve a perfect 10 in this category, for
me, it would have to be Brutal Legend. The voice acting is simply superb with
all of the actors (and musicians) doing an amazing job of keeping the story
moving with just the right amount of seriousness and silliness. The music in the
game is a “Who’s Who’s” of hard rock/metal ranging from the most popular bands
of all time to the most obscure. Occasionally, you will hear the same phrases
repeated which will get old after a while.
Difficulty: Medium
Probably the hardest part of the game is getting use to the RTS controls. The
rest of the game does a great job of allowing to you keep on playing really
without any penalties. You die but you can restart the secondary missions and
during the boss battles you’ll be resurrected to keep on fighting (just don’t
let them take your main stage down).
Concept: 9.0
Sure there are plenty of “dark” games being released nowadays but none of them
are really “metal.” If you’re a metal fan or have been a metal fan in the past
(shame on you for leaving the flock) then you’ll find plenty to smile about with
the humorous storyline. Even though the game is rated mature you even have an
option to censor the profanity (which there is plenty of) and extreme gore in
the game.
Multiplayer: 8.0
Surprise, surprise multiplayer is all about the battle of the band RTS combat.
You get seven stages and three different factions to choose play with. You get
Eddie’s Ironheade units, the sort of black metal Drowning Doom faction and the
gore fanatic Tainted Coil faction.
Overall: 8.6
Even with some shaky controls Brutal Legend is still a fun, humorous and
entertaining game. Don’t disappoint the metal gods by missing it or tossing it
aside only after a couple of hours. Like any good metal album it might take a
couple of listens (plays) to really sink it.
