Review – Brutal Legend 0

by Adam Blue • Reviews

I’m going to be honest – I’ve never played a Tim Schafer game through entirely. They were fun, but too wordy and story driven for my tastes. But that’s just my preference because that style of gaming is popular. I mean, heck, I don’t even like RPGs. But Brutal Legend stood out because of the setting. Metal. My favorite bands are Judas Priest and Iron Maiden (sadly absent from the game), and I even play drums/guitar while Sean and I are working on a metal album. So it was very easy to get me hooked.

Watching previews and playing the demo, the game looked to be a 3rd person action/adventure title. Now that I have the full game, I’ll call it a 3rd person real-time action/adventure/strategy. The RTS elements in the game are pretty badass. But because there is emphasis on the hand to hand combat, it’s not a full-blown RTS, and commanding of the units is pretty easy. You never have to send them out separately. You are more or less babying a group of fighters to go along with you. You have the option of using double-team abilities with all the units that will only help you in battle, and you can play solos that help out to, by either killing enemies or strengthening your troops.

The main singleplayer campaign is an open world game that have stage-battle missions that then bring in the RTS elements. Other than that, you are exploring to expand on the story, finding items throughout the world, and doing side-missions. The story is great as it is about metal, and features some of the coolest voices of the genre, specifically, Rob Halford. I would have hoped for some Maiden, but my belief is since Maiden and Osbourne have some issues, Maiden didn’t want to be part of a project that featured Ozzy as a big character. On a personal level, and as huge Maiden fan, the Ozzy camp have been real pricks, so I can understand in a way why the Maiden camp just steers clear. But unfortunately by doing so, Maiden is turning their backs on their fans. The official maiden boards even include a video games forum! …and no one is even talking about the game. Fortunately though, Tim went as far as naming the main character Eddie Riggs. A big time nod to Maiden fans.

So with the story, all elements of the metal culture are given some sort of explanation, which plays out both awesome and humorously. It makes sense. But I have to wonder, will you get it if you don’t care for metal? Well, as a 3rd person brawler, the fighting is pretty goof, but I feel the controls could be tighter. The idea of busting out your guitar for rhythm-game style solos is an awesome addition. And having a car to drive around and blow up shit is also entertaining. As you explore, there are many things to activate/collect/find which gives you points you can use to upgrade almost every aspect of the game. Guitar, axe, gun, and car. And as far as the RTS elements, I’m sure RTS fans would have fun with the multiplayer. I’m sure if the game was marketed as an RTS and you expected that, you might possibly still be impressed, but the elitists would cry.

As for graphics, things here are pretty simple but ooze with style. Again, it’s all based around the metal culture and makes sense. I personally love the style of the baddies. They are the black/death metal style, as you can hear that music in the background. Their look is really just terrifying to me. Traveling around in their part of the world gave me the chills, so I went back to make sure I was fully upgraded first. The main villain, Doviculus, just looks fucking awesome. I want an action figure STAT! But to go back on the negative points, this does look like something you can play on the PS2. Even though graphics aren’t everything, people still complain.

With the sound, you got some fun voice acting to go along with the characters. It’s much more cartoony than realistic, and jack Black delivers as Eddie. The soundtrack is brutal. Not a lot of metal that I like, but the Priest choices are spot-on, and hearing 3 Inches of Blood in a game like this works. As Priest is a favorite band of mine, I like metal in the style of Liege Lord or Attacker. Both are similar to Priest/Maiden. Check them out.

Shortly after the game was released, Tim posted some strategies on Double Fine’s site:

Some people find it hard to split up the army and give individual orders to individual troops. This is kinda true, mostly because you shouldn’t be doing it! That’s how you play an RTS game, not how you should play Brütal Legend. True, there are times where you might want to split your army, but it’s not common. I play complete Stage Battles most of the time without issuing a single Individual order. Your army is most effective when it’s together. The AI automatically groups your warriors into battle formations where the troops support each other. Many of the units buff or heal each other. When they are together they can all be enhanced with a single Battle Cry (or other buffing) solo. And when they are all together and you are in the middle of them, that is when you have the greatest number of options for Double Team attacks.

Tim is right (well, he made the game…). You can go about as if it’s not an RTS, and it’s much easier. By thinking of it as an RTS, I did lose some battles. Once I understood it’s really about fighting with your army, it became clear. You don’t send guys out to different locations, you don’t sit back and plan where to put what. You get a good amount of dudes, send them out, and then jump in, taking advantage of the many abilities provided. By doing this, I tore up a stage battle that made my previous attempt look very, very sad.

Tycho from Penny-Arcade then posted this:

This is a statement I honestly don’t understand. Much of the game (and the entirety of the multiplayer) is self-evidently an RTS, and one must engage in real-time strategy battles in order to progress though the body of the campaign. The fact that the game is also many other things, perhaps too many things simultaneously, doesn’t alter the fact. And you can’t really blame people for playing the game as an RTS when that’s explicitly how you taught them to play it.

I see where Tycho is coming from because he is a hardcore gamer who has played many RTS’s in the past. As a console game with a wide market appeal, many, many non-hardcore gamers will play this. Most, have not played an RTS. They go into battle going by what the game tells them and without a background knowledge of what to do in an RTS, and they will do a lot better.

I love rhythm games, but I don’t want to play a rhythm game while I’m playing an RTS while I’m playing a third person action game. In the middle of RTS battles, some basic commands require wyldde soloz to be rocked via a timing mechanism, which serves Brutal Legend’s theme but not its gameplay, and that’s the problem here in general. Brutal Legend is like a spoiled child, afforded every luxury, but grown wild in in the absence of discipline.

Again, he misses the point. Doing a solo is just another way to perform an ability of some sort among your army. By doing the solo wrong, you don’t activate that ability. This is no different than a button combo that will activate an attack or spell. Plus…it’s simple and adds to the setting.

I can see if you don’t care for metal and love RTS’s, you might have a hard time with this. But with my love for metal, I was able to overlook what seemed to be an RTS sneak-attack, and was able to play the game for what it is. If you love metal, play this game asap. It’s worth the $60 if you can swing it. If you don’t care for metal, you might just want to try it out. And if not now, some time soon. It doesn’t do anything amazing for those not into metal, but the stage battles are a little different and may interest those who want a little bit of strategy in their brawling.

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