Brutal Legend is a hard game to classify when you factor in the action, adventure, and strategy elements implemented by the imaginative Mr. Tim Schafer. If his name seems familiar, it’s because he’s the man responsible for one of the biggest sleeper hits from last generation, Psychonauts. Psychonauts wasn’t a commercial success, but a great game full of unique ideas and a wild sense of humor. Tim’s latest game has arrived and there are a lot of gamers who’ve been anxious to know if the game is good enough to warrant a purchase. Let me say that Brutal Legend is a pretty good game, but it’s not Tim Schafer’s greatest.
Brutal Legend does have it’s share of drawbacks with it’s biggest being the bar that was set for it through the hype machine of Activision and the hopes of Schafer fans. You may not encounter the same issue that I faced. So I’ll continue this review with an open mind as if Psychonauts never change my gaming life. Was that too much? Seriously, let’s get to Schafer’s Brutal Legend.
You play as Eddie Riggs, a roadie, voiced by, certainly not modeled after the funny Jack Black. After watching the intro scene, you’re transported into a heavy metal world with the help of the trusty fire beast Ormagadon. Once you’re able to control Eddie, you’ll be rushing to find a weapon so you can kill the red coated demons. You will get a broad axe and a guitar, the axe acts as your melee weapon while the guitar is your magic casting staff. Sounds pretty metal right? Have an open mind. I did.
After some bloody melee, you meet Ophelia who will guide you towards Bladehenge, where the leaders of a small human resistance group. You will be able to go there by using The Deuce, a car that Eddie was able to create. From here, Eddie joins forces with the resistance group in order to defeat the evil being of this world Doviculus. The story is well told and provides an intriguing plot and plenty of laughs. The excellent voice acting of the game characters helped the story to be even more exciting to watch.
Brutal Legend’s game play is mix up between action/adventure and strategy. The game follows an open world structure with lots of side quests to finish. While some of the side missions are fun to play, there should have been more variety in mission types. To tell you the truth, side missions like ambushing enemies or racing will get old fast. I was anticipating a better constructed or I guess slightly more creative side missions from Tim Schafer, but this wasn’t the case.
The main missions in the game, however, are very well constructed and more importantly fun to play. Main missions are typically stage battles based on real time strategy elements with the player being required to defend a giant stage. Eddie can create an army for attacks by creating merchandise booths on fan geysers done by performing a summoning mini game akin to the note-matching aspect of Guitar Hero or Rock Band. Once enough fans are gathered, Eddie can summon different units, each consuming a specific number of fans, or upgrade their stage to allow him to produce more powerful units. Enemies will try to destroy your booths in order to make these spots as their booths, which will lessen your fans amount and of course will prevent you from spawning more units. Most of the enjoyment you will have in this game is from those missions, but the issue is you will not play a lot of these missions. The game play is so good that you’ll wish there was more. Of course since this is an EA game, it’s very possible that it’s already on the disc and we’ll be paying for “DLC” here shortly.
You obtain tribute points by finishing missions and side quests. Head over to the Prince of Darkness himself - Ozzy Osbourne and exchange points for weapons, vehicle upgrades, special moves and additional items. The game doesn’t give you the motivation to upgrade, as you will be able to finish the game without so much investment in upgrades.
Multiplayer modes are team-based and operate in the same manner as the single-player Stage Battles. Each team selects from one of three factions which affect what resources and troops they can summon, and are tasked with defending their stage from attack by the other team.
Visually Brutal Legend is beautiful to look at. That’s due to the great style of the game world and the well done characters. The game does have some frame rate issues, but it doesn’t ruin the experience. Another great thing you will notice about the game is the music. I’m not a big fan of metal music, but I really have enjoyed the great variety of tracks the game has offered. You’ll find yourself riding The Deuce and just traveling the game world just to listen to the great tracks from the game.
Brutal Legend certainly is an interesting and unique experience that doesn’t come along that often in the gaming world, but some issues have prevented it from reaching the same level of quality one expects from Tim Schafer. Don’t take this as a declaration of Brutal Legend’s failure, because it’s not. In fact I recommend this game for anyone who wants to play a funny game with action and strategy that’ll keep them busy. I just wish it kept me busy longer. The shortness of the game coupled with the sky-high expectations I had resulted in this title getting docked a little pointage. But you should certainly suggest you get in line to see this live right now.
Graphics | Audio | Gameplay | Replay | Genre | Final |
