Brutal Legend [PS3]

Brutal Legend is leaded by Tim Schafer and it’s the latest game to come from Double Fine studios. Tim Schafer also produced the big hit wonder Psychonauts, on which he really specialises in with the rich environment and superb platforming. When I first heard about Brutal Legend, I knew I would love this game. Not only being a fan of metal music, but the cast of this game on which Schafer has introduced to play the characters of this metal universe is going to be one hell of a solo riff. When playing the game the audio is the best second to none, gameplay was fine and wasn’t too difficult, driving the deuce with certain tracks playing made you feel indestructible and really put the foot down. To some people metal isn’t there thing and lose interest because of the songs and most probably the gameplay on how it’s portrayed. Brutal Legend made me laugh, happy and last of all satisfied to a certain degree.

You play as Eddie Riggs (Voiced by Tenacious D singer and Hollywood actor Jack Black), and he is a Roadie. You make sure the stage is set, no mishaps and let other people take the credit why you leave with no trace. The story begins with Eddie in the background to make the band look amazing and ready for the fans to digest them. He’s just not any kind of Roadie; he is the best Roadie in the world. One of the band members is in trouble and Eddie rushes to save him. He succeeds but soon after the stage collapses and Eddie is crushed. Blood spills onto his demonic belt and it begins to glow. This demonic symbol is also the main stage design and soon comes alive. The fans keep cheering while the band looks in horror, this beast coated in chrome like a metalbeast roars with fire and resurrects Eddie into this new world.

In this world you would fantasize weird creatures, epic characters and outstanding landmarks. When roaming around this new world you will encounter these epic-scale landmarks which your gob will hit the floor. When finishing the action packed opener you meet a girl called Ophelia (metal crossed emo chick) and you will soon meet the rest of the cast. Lars Halford (the leader and reminds me of Dave Mustaine but without the ginger hair) Lita Halford (a sexy blonde rock chick) sister to Lars. Eddie is the interesting character as there is plenty of background to this character and being linked to this new world. He is the funniest out of the lot but you do get some good dialogue with other characters when Eddie is interacting with them.

Lord Doviculus and General Lionwhyte (glam rock appearance may not seem all a bit menacing or scary but has an incredible shriek!) are the main two baddies on which you will soon like to shred some great solos into them. With Lionwhyte being a dominating force with girls in his pleasure tower and men working in the mines, Eddie soon takes on the role of making an army to force the evil out and make sure the human race to have freedom. In the first part of all this you go off and recruit various more members to help fight the course of freedom. My favourite is the headbangers. When you press the triangle button you start a most pit. The headbangers then form around you and you soon become a force to be reckoned with. The sayings they have will make you laugh as they have no brains but there a force which is vital for you to succeed. You get girls known as the groupies and have special attacks and you have some roadies which carry speakers which make a noise.

The combat has two different formats. Hack & Slash, and RTS (Real time strategy). Eddie has the combo of two weapons such as; the guitar and the axe on which you will get straight the way when Eddie wakes up in this weird place. The guitar has two functions which can help well if enemies have swarm you. The guitar shoots out electricity and you can target your enemies with the use of L2 and hold down the square button for a charged up attack. You also have solos which you will come across while exploring giving you new solos which bring down some tactics, devastating attacks and summon your vehicle and control of your army. The guitar will pretty much be used more than the axe when playing Brutal Legend. Nor does it mean that the axe will not be used, the axe will definitely help out when cramped in on the battlefield. Eddie also have moves such as combos and linking with his guitar and axe to really make your enemy run to the hills. The RTS element comes into play when you have stage battles. Mangus the engineer of Ironheade and the tour bus driver will set the stage up for your battle. You have these fan geysers done by a guitar solo minigame. The solos for anything you wish to do will go into minigame and you must hit the buttons in the sequence. The more fans you get the better units you can get, better units and upgrading your stage to have more options to you. Eddie soon turns into a winged demon. He only turns into a winged demon when your in a stage battle. From here you can fly about the battlefield commanding your army to attack a or b, set up a defence here and send out attacks to enemy fan geysers and take over them for your own advantage. You can set out indivdiual tactics for certain units to attack other enemy units. Say your groupies & headbangers go out and attack the smaller units and in the thick of the battle. You can use the barons to flank them and attack from behind to make your attack more effective. The stage battles can be time consuming but a joy when mastered the controls and which unit can perform what.

The celebrities on which Tim Schafer has got for this game is remarkable. The voice talent of Jack Black, voices the hero of Eddie Riggs. Tim Curry, voicing the villian Lord Divculus. Ozzy Osbourne, playing as the Guardian of metal on which you will need for upgrades for your deuce a.k.a The Druid Plow and new guitars and axes. Rob Halford, Judas Priest frontman voices General Lionwhyte and the Baron on which Eddie teams up later in the game. The bass healing Kill Master voiced by Lemmy Kilmister is a brilliant character as his crew and himself will heal your units when in battle and of course yourself. Lita Ford voices the Amazonian Rima on who joins Eddie to fight against the Tainted Coil on which Lord Divculus controls.

Brutal Legend is a metal paradise. The audio is the best I have witnessed in a game and it sure does help if you like metal music in the process. When exploring around this bizarre but fun world. You will across relic risers on which unlocks new songs such as; Tenacious D songs. The Metal, Master Exploder to name a couple. Seperents which the metal gods will give you when freed 10 of these dragon statues. You can get 10% better healing rate so when taking damage it lessens the time to heal when taken damage.

Overall Brutal Legend is a game which people will love it or hate it. The game is full of humour which will make you laugh and will easily go down as the funniest game of all time. Metal references, with amazing encounters with memorable characters has really set the game. The only worrying part of this game can be the combat and the repetitive side quests. What makes up for the repetitive side quests is the time to explore unlocking more songs, viewing landmarks using the deuce to jump over some outragous jumps. The game will get overlooked by the gameplay which will prevent Brutal Legend to receive its recgonition on which it deserves.

Gameplay: 8
Graphics: 9
Sound: 10

This was gonna be a day 1 purchase for me until the RTS aspects appeared.

What's the balance like between Hack/Slash and RTS gameplay elements?

RavenxPrime wrote:This was gonna be a day 1 purchase for me until the RTS aspects appeared.

What's the balance like between Hack/Slash and RTS gameplay elements?

Works quite well actually. Get as many fan geysers as you can, because it means more units out on the field and better units as well. When you set up which unit does what pretty much, you have the freedom of dropping in or out to help.

I simply went in myself and did the guitar slide and shred some tunes into the enemies. I was unsure at first on how balanced it was but when I came across a battle which the RTS elements come into play, its very balanced.

Cool, I may have to give this a re think then, enjoyed the demo and the voice acting and music is way up my street lol

RavenxPrime wrote:Cool, I may have to give this a re think then, enjoyed the demo and the voice acting and music is way up my street lol

The best cameo appearances are Lemmy, Ozzy and Rob Halford plus Tim Curry!

Best soundtracks to a game ever methinks

Yeh you can't beat a bit of proper Heavy F'in Metal

RavenxPrime wrote:Yeh you can't beat a bit of proper Heavy F'in Metal

Amen to that. Motorhead - We Are The Roadcrew, is probably the best song to listen to when thrashing your car about the place to be honest