Brutal Legend Review

I usually don't like to review games until after I have beaten them, but in the case of the awesomeness that is Brutal Legend, I will make an exception. To put it bluntly, BRUTAL LEGEND ROCKS! It has its downfalls, which I'll delve into, but on the whole as a package, it is the definitive heavy metal game.

I won't bore you with the intricacies of the story (which goes from 0-60 in about the length of time of an Iron Maiden guitar solo), but I will say a few things that I like. It's a decent story, probably Tim Schaefer's weakest, however, in the grand scheme of things, way better than a lot of crappy stories these days (I'm looking at you Mirror's Edge). Tim Schafer games include all of the Monkey Island Games, Grim Fandango, Full Throttle and Psychonauts.

The story is basically a "what if there was an parallel universe where Heavy Metal was created and passed down by the gods and people forgot it over time, but if you rock out and play some kickass solos you get awesome powers." I mean, how awesome is that!? If you didn't say very awesome, then you are dead wrong

It takes some huge balls to create a game like this, both figuratively and financially, as in the last 20 years (or if we want to get very technical, since Metallica's Black Album), heavy metal has been slowly dying. It has since been replaced by many things, none of which are even close to being the same thing. Goth and scream metal are not the same things. In fact, one of the main villains you fight are Goths, but I won't get too much into that. How metal is this game? Well, apart from the kick ass solos you bust out in a Guitar Hero styled way, there's also 82 metal songs in this game. These aren't just little blurbs or major bands, I'm talking huge names and huge songs and really obscure (but still AWESOME) songs. This is a game that has Ozzy, Lita Ford, Rob Halford and Lemmy doing voice acting. Let it be known that Ozzy does have the smallest part in terms of importance to the actual story, but he is the fucking GUARDIAN OF METAL. I mean, do I really need to sell you on the metal level of this game? I think not. If you like metal, don't read the rest of my review. Just go buy this damn game.

Ok, for all of you people on the fence who kinda like metal or Jack Black, here's what is good and bad about the the actual gameplay.

Good

• The hack and slash parts are excellent and everything controls very well. From driving your car (Druid Plow) to running and picking certain enemies to attack, everything is smooth.
  
  
• The actual hack and slash battles are also equally excellent, making you think about how you will attack a huge group of enemies and switch between your battle axe, and your guitar (or, other battle axe if you want to use Heavy Metal lingo).
  
  
• The side missions, while repetitive, have a good variety to them. There are a decent amount and you don't really HAVE to do them, although they will help you later on buy more upgrades that you will need. They aren't bad if you do them sporadically, like I have, but if you want to do a whole bunch in a row, you will notice that they get very boring and that the little cutscenes right before are almost exactly the same in each case, but overall, I liked the variety of them.
  
  

• The graphics are gorgeous. There is a bit of pop-in when you are driving, but GTA has pop-in too and I think it's still an unavoidable thing when you are talking about a huge open world game. The characters are very cleanly rendered and the style of everything is awesome. When it really shows off is when there are LOADS of enemies and units on screen. There is almost no slowdown (once I've seen in), while there are loads of units fighting. This was never designed to be a realistic looking game, and I wasn't expecting that, but the art design and style is phenomenal.
  
  
• The voice acting is among the best I've ever heard. Even with huge names, they don't give them WAY too many lines and the more important people are voiced by phenomenal voice actors (Tim Curry or even Jack Black). My only qualm was that Rob Halfords character looked like it should have been voiced by David Bowie.

Bad

• About an hour in you have your first boss battle, or "stage battle" as it's called in the game. No matter what Tim Schaefer says, this is totally a RTS design. Read this Penny Arcade strip to get a sense of what i am talking about. I, for one, am not a fan of real time strategy games. However, they are not quite that hard, except for the one I am currently stuck at! GRRRRRRRRR! However, they are unnecessarily long and while it is encouraged that you actually fight in these battles, you don't have super powers or a health bar so it is tough to gauge how much you can actually take, and these enemies will kill you (you automatically respawn an infinite number of times until someone actual wins or loses the battle, but its annoying).

That really is the only bad thing I could find in this game, and while it is a design choice and a matter of personal preference (I hate RTS games, too much going on at once), but if you can get past that, you'll love this game. Please play the demo on 360 or PS3 to play the 1st half hour of the game if you are on the fence. That should make you want this game a lot more. If you are thinking about it, PLEASE buy it. This is a game that will LIVE AND DIE by the sales it has when you purchase it NEW. Please support the fine developers at Double Fine and only purchase new, as I fear that if this game bombs, it will just make it harder for an original game with an original idea to get created if you aren't from a big company and because dammit, Tim Schaefer deserves it.

Rating: 9.5 out of 10.0