There's a lot to love about Brütal Legend. From its quick-witted script and memorable cast of characters, to its brilliantly realised setting and diverse selection of missions. There's only one problem - the game itself isn't that great. If creator Tim Schafer didn't have such a talent for creating evocative worlds and arresting characters, we probably would have scored it a lot less.
But anything this imaginative and broad in scope should be celebrated, regardless of its technical shortcomings. Because, without games like this, we'd be lost in a sea of warehouses and foul-mouthed space marines. And it's for this reason that Brütal Legend is worthy of your time.
Brutal Legend
Official trailer
1:33Debut trailer
Brutal Legend
Official trailer
1:33Debut trailer
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Our hero is Eddie Riggs, a roadie who's whisked away to the Age of Metal - a world of leather, volcanoes and skulls that looks like a heavy metal album cover come to life. Enormous guitar-shaped statues dominate the skyline, fireballs rain from the sky, speakers carved into the side of mountains shriek with feedback and chrome exhausts protrude from the grass like trees. It's an inspired setting and beautifully designed.
And you can explore it at your leisure. The game is totally free-roaming and you drive between objectives in Eddie's flame-licked hot rod, The Deuce. The handling is fun and arcade-like, making skidding around the world taking in the sights one of the game's biggest pleasures. And it gets even better when you find the Guardian of Metal, played brilliantly by the Prince of Darkness himself, Ozzy Osbourne.
Locate an entrance to his fiery underground lair - marked by giant skull-adorned statues that must be 'raised' by playing a guitar solo - and you can upgrade The Deuce with new weapons, armour and speed boosts, paint jobs and even an in-car stereo. This makes exploring the world even more awesome, as you can create your own playlists from the game's 100+ brilliant licensed metal tracks.
It's the music that defines Brütal Legend. Every major set-piece is accompanied by a song from the soundtrack, often with a lyrical or thematic connection to what's happening on screen. This is a rare example of a licensed video game soundtrack being used specifically to complement the action, rather than just being played indiscriminately in the background. In one memorable scene, Dragonforce's 'Through the Fire and Flames' roars in the background as you steer The Deuce at breakneck speeds through a castle being torn apart by demons. When it was over, our hearts were literally pounding.
And music is also incorporated into the gameplay. Eddie can play solos on his guitar, Clementine, that have various effects. They're basically musical magical spells, and are controlled via short, easy rhythm action sequences. Holding R2 brings up a wheel of available solos, and you select them with X. You can use them to summon The Deuce, melt enemies' faces (a kind of smart bomb), raise buried monuments (like the entrance to the Guardian of Metal's lair) and increase the strength of NPCs.
Brütal Legend isn't all about Eddie. A large portion of the game sees you controlling armies of NPCs in real-time strategy sections. You build a stage (your base), harvest energy (or 'fans') to spend on units, and control your troops from above (click R3 to fly - Eddie sprouts wings). Units range from bouncers, who serve as pure muscle, to roadies that can turn invisible and attack enemy buildings stealthily. You also have healers and ranged units, and your goal is to wipe out the enemy commander's army (goths and glam rockers), protect your stage and, in some cases, destroy the entrance to their stronghold to unlock the next area of the map.
But despite offering a wealth of features, these bits kinda suck. You never really feel in control of your army, and selecting individual units can be a pain (you have to hold triangle, then order them with the button still held down - more annoying and clumsy than it sounds). You also have to be next to a unit to order it around, which means furiously flying around the battlefield trying to locate them. Why's there no menu that lets you just scroll through them? It's good that they tried to do something different, but this aspect of the game just isn't polished enough and, too often, it's incredibly annoying. In one battle we slogged for 40 minutes, only to suddenly fail. No checkpoints. Grrr.
But you can retract your wings at any point and join the battle yourself, and this is where the game is at its best - when you're in the thick of it getting axe happy. The 'normal' missions, when you're not doing the RTS stuff, are much better. The game uses standard third-person action game controls. You swing your axe with X, shred your guitar (which has elemental effects such as lightning or fire) with square and can unlock new combos by visiting the Guardian of Metal. It's basic stuff, but slickly animated and enjoyable. You can even do dual attacks with NPCs, like straddling a roadie's speakers to unleash waves of feedback, or forming a brutal moshpit with a gang of thick-skulled headbangers.
The objectives themselves are always interesting. One sees you invading a nest of chrome spiders to steal some bass strings. It's the Age of Metal, remember? Spiders don't spin webs; they spin guitar strings. Genius. But like the RTS features, the game lacks overall polish and repetition sets in quickly. Every mission - no matter how novel - is a slight variation on the same gameplay, and it grows old fast.
But when it's good, it's simply awesome. For every dull moment there's a blistering set-piece with a brilliantly orchestrated piece of ear-burning metal. Or an amazing view to gaze at on the world map. Or a celebrity cameo to snigger at (including Lemmy, Ozzy and Jack Black's partner Kyle from Tenacious D). Or just something else to laugh at. The story is great, the characters are likeable and it's utterly unique on PS3. It's just a great shame the core mechanics here are so disappointing.
No, it's -2 points because it isn't as good as Uncharted 2. The demo kinda sucked - a poor man's God of War type thing. And Jack Black is ever so annoying - does he do any other characters apart from himself?
no... its -2 points due to the fact that some of the gameplay elements are a bit weak, with awkward an counter intuitive controls int he RTS bits and repetitive gameplay in the rest of the game as mentioned in the review, genius
...
Enjoyed the demo but as with all 3rd person games like this I find the 'keep hammering the attack button' game play style a bit... dull?
Made me chuckle though, some good scripting and funny voice acting.
Well IGN loved it. US gave it a 9 - http://uk.xbox360.ign.com/articles/103/1033952p1.html and Aus a 9.3 - http://uk.xbox360.ign.com/articles/103/1030770p1.html .
Well the US and AU divisions on IGN gave it 9.0 and 9.3 respectively, good enough for me, day 1 purchase, I'll wait until me birthday in November to get Uncharted 2.
The RTS sections put me off really. I want this to do well, not least to stick it to Activision, but if you were forced to choose between this and Uncharted 2 it would be a no-brainer for me.
think I'll just stick to Uncharted 2 this Friday then. Brutal Legend does look awesome but not as epic as Naughty Dog's beauty and playing them both this weekend would overwhelm me.
I've noticed something about CVG. Whenever any decent game comes out and is loved by other websites CVG always has to undermine it somehow. I've not played the demo but I've had my eye on this game for a while now and the only website that hasn't raved about Brutal legend is CVG, strange that.
Anyway I'm gonna pick it up this Friday with Uncharted 2. The joys of having money folks.
the review wasn't written by CVG it was from the PS3 mag. Which i'm guessing wouldn't say that the competiton for a game out the same week as Sonys big exclusive for this christmas was better than it.
Brutal Legend's also out for the 360 as well BTW.
I played the demo and loved it from start to finish. Then again i'm a huge Tim shaeffer fan so i'm bound to be biased.
I'll get Uncharted 2 eventually but i'm just not even half as excited about it as i am brutal legend.
I recently tried the demo and thought it was okay. No better, no worse.
To be brutally ( ) honest, it all seemed a bit 'last gen'. The action seemed basic and the camera was poor.
The only redeeming features were the rawk and gore-factor.
7.9 seems like a pretty reasonable score, all things considered.
It's a double edged sword for me. I was looking forward to Brutal Legend, yet couldn't believe they were releasing the game on the same day as Uncharted 2. Now I don't have to worry about it anymore...
the review wasn't written by CVG it was from the PS3 mag. Which i'm guessing wouldn't say that the competiton for a game out the same week as Sonys big exclusive for this christmas was better than it.
Brutal Legend's also out for the 360 as well BTW.
I played the demo and loved it from start to finish. Then again i'm a huge Tim shaeffer fan so i'm bound to be biased.
I'll get Uncharted 2 eventually but i'm just not even half as excited about it as i am brutal legend.
Are you for real?! I've heard some conspiracy theories in my time, but that takes the biscuit!
I had a feeling it would get a score similar to this after trying the demo. It was good fun with some great little touches (I loved the way it stops mid sentence/animation near the start and then asks you if you want to have full bad language/violence or a censored version), but the combat, which is the most important part of the game after all, was getting repetitive by the end of the demo.
I'll still give the full game a go but I'll only be renting it now.
it's not the most outlandish of theories is it. Is Brutal Legend on the front cover of said mag or Uncharted 2.
Which games been hyped up as the game to get on the PS3 coz it certainly isn't Brutal Legend?
Money probably didn't change hands but come on. WOuld you rate the game thats coming out the same day as the cover story for your mag higher than it. of course you wouldn't.
As i said i'm biased. I've loved Tim Shaeffers work since Monkey Island and Manic Mansion, If i had the cash i would more than likely get both on day one.
but i would urge people for the love of all thats original and great about this industry to buy both.
Apparently you can minimalise the RTS elements of the game, I wasn't too sure about this.
I'm not sure how this is any more last gen than any other game though. Pretty much all games released this gen are 'last gen' but with snazzier graphics.
It looks a laugh and I'll definitely pick it up soon enough.
it's not the most outlandish of theories is it. Is Brutal Legend on the front cover of said mag or Uncharted 2.
Which games been hyped up as the game to get on the PS3 coz it certainly isn't Brutal Legend?
Money probably didn't change hands but come on. WOuld you rate the game thats coming out the same day as the cover story for your mag higher than it. of course you wouldn't.
If it was the Official PS mag we were talking about, then maybe you'd have a point but it's not. Why would an unofficial mag try to persuade people to buy one game over another?. No one would be putting them under pressure to give the Sony exclusive a higher score than everything else in the mag.
it's not the most outlandish of theories is it. Is Brutal Legend on the front cover of said mag or Uncharted 2.
Which games been hyped up as the game to get on the PS3 coz it certainly isn't Brutal Legend?
Money probably didn't change hands but come on. WOuld you rate the game thats coming out the same day as the cover story for your mag higher than it. of course you wouldn't.
If it was the Official PS mag we were talking about, then maybe you'd have a point but it's not. Why would an unofficial mag try to persuade people to buy one game over another?. No one would be putting them under pressure to give the Sony exclusive a higher score than everything else in the mag.
i'm saying internal factors may and as a magazine convincing you to buy one game over the other is basically the name of the game. inform, advise and entertain.
i'm saying its an unfair review based on the competition. meh its just my opinion. I was blown away by the demo, but i could understand if it wasn't everyones cup of tea.
I was blown away by the demo, but i could understand if it wasn't everyones cup of tea.
This is one of my slight concerns, the fact that the entire game is orientated around metal and may not be peoples thing. Don't get me wrong, for me its awesome, I love metal, but it'd be a damn shame that people are put off by it just because of that reason. I know guitar hero/rock band have introduced metal and rock to a larger audience, but the metal tracks in the games, especially the newer ones, are few and far between.
I don't think you need to be a fan of the genre to be able to enjoy the game, but it certainly helps. I just hope it doesn't hinder the sales.
I was blown away by the demo, but i could understand if it wasn't everyones cup of tea.
This is one of my slight concerns, the fact that the entire game is orientated around metal and may not be peoples thing. Don't get me wrong, for me its awesome, I love metal, but it'd be a damn shame that people are put off by it just because of that reason. I know guitar hero/rock band have introduced metal and rock to a larger audience, but the metal tracks in the games, especially the newer ones, are few and far between.
I don't think you need to be a fan of the genre to be able to enjoy the game, but it certainly helps. I just hope it doesn't hinder the sales.
I was blown away by the demo, but i could understand if it wasn't everyones cup of tea.
This is one of my slight concerns, the fact that the entire game is orientated around metal and may not be peoples thing. Don't get me wrong, for me its awesome, I love metal, but it'd be a damn shame that people are put off by it just because of that reason. I know guitar hero/rock band have introduced metal and rock to a larger audience, but the metal tracks in the games, especially the newer ones, are few and far between.
I don't think you need to be a fan of the genre to be able to enjoy the game, but it certainly helps. I just hope it doesn't hinder the sales.
I was blown away by the demo, but i could understand if it wasn't everyones cup of tea.
This is one of my slight concerns, the fact that the entire game is orientated around metal and may not be peoples thing. Don't get me wrong, for me its awesome, I love metal, but it'd be a damn shame that people are put off by it just because of that reason. I know guitar hero/rock band have introduced metal and rock to a larger audience, but the metal tracks in the games, especially the newer ones, are few and far between.
I don't think you need to be a fan of the genre to be able to enjoy the game, but it certainly helps. I just hope it doesn't hinder the sales.
you want consipracy theories? everything you said could just as easily apply to Blood on the Sand, which actually succeeds at cloning Gears of War better than Brutal Legends does any other hack-and-slash.
I was blown away by the demo, but i could understand if it wasn't everyones cup of tea.
This is one of my slight concerns, the fact that the entire game is orientated around metal and may not be peoples thing. Don't get me wrong, for me its awesome, I love metal, but it'd be a damn shame that people are put off by it just because of that reason. I know guitar hero/rock band have introduced metal and rock to a larger audience, but the metal tracks in the games, especially the newer ones, are few and far between.
I don't think you need to be a fan of the genre to be able to enjoy the game, but it certainly helps. I just hope it doesn't hinder the sales.
you want consipracy theories? everything you said could just as easily apply to Blood on the Sand, which actually succeeds at cloning Gears of War better than Brutal Legends does any other hack-and-slash.
mwhahaha i get to play this and uncharted 2 right now!!!!!!and im not at work till sat...happy days for me....also if anyone else has them, let me know so we can get some multiplaye goin
it's not the most outlandish of theories is it. Is Brutal Legend on the front cover of said mag or Uncharted 2.
Which games been hyped up as the game to get on the PS3 coz it certainly isn't Brutal Legend?
Actually neither game is on the front cover of PSM3, Racket and Clank is. PSM3 have not even reviewed Uncharted 2 yet. Your theory isn't even based on fact. Then again thats never stopped you before.
There's a lot of comments being flung around here about us 'undermining' games, or having some ulterior, political motive for the scores we give.
Absolute nonsense.
I was given the game, I played it, I took it home and played it some more, I reviewed it, I gave it a score.
I don't really know what else I can do. If you disagree, that's fine, but it's hardly fair tossing accusations around. Especially groundless conspiracy theories.
Brutal Legend is great, but it isn't perfect. And that's my opinion. It's up to you to take it or leave it. Maybe IGN are right? It's all subjective. My only concern is telling people whether a game is worth spending money on or not. That's my job.
I know it's fun to think of the games press as a cabal of corrupt corporate shills, but most of us are just a bunch of guys who are lucky enough to play games for a living.
Anyway, thanks for reading. And go play Brutal Legend, because, as you may have noticed, the score is CONSIDERABLY above average.
Have to say that IMO the demo was terrible sadly, as I was really looking forward to this game's initial concept; especially with the capable Tim Schafer at the helm. However, I'm still sufficiently interested to know what happens once you are out of the demo portion in the real game and if the horrible breakup of game flow goes away, or whether it is like that with non-stop cut scenes all the way through. Plus, if the driving remains as horrible and if the fighting mechanics stay as unresponsive and random feeling.
There's a lot of comments being flung around here about us 'undermining' games, or having some ulterior, political motive for the scores we give.
Absolute nonsense.
I was given the game, I played it, I took it home and played it some more, I reviewed it, I gave it a score.
I don't really know what else I can do. If you disagree, that's fine, but it's hardly fair tossing accusations around. Especially groundless conspiracy theories.
Brutal Legend is great, but it isn't perfect. And that's my opinion. It's up to you to take it or leave it. Maybe IGN are right? It's all subjective. My only concern is telling people whether a game is worth spending money on or not. That's my job.
I know it's fun to think of the games press as a cabal of corrupt corporate shills, but most of us are just a bunch of guys who are lucky enough to play games for a living.
Anyway, thanks for reading. And go play Brutal Legend, because, as you may have noticed, the score is CONSIDERABLY above average.
AK
Well said. I have questioned reviews myself, in the past, but that will change. Whether I agree with them or not, I am going to respect them.
Good mag, btw. Ratchet and Clank is looking awesome.
Well, I loved the demo, so Uncharted 2 AND Brutal Legend are coming to me tomorrow giving my wallet nice, big Fatality.
Now the last problem is, what I'm going to play first dammit!
As for IGN, they come very close to my taste most of the time with their ratings (well except maybe for GTA4), but that doesn't really matter, I was interested in Brutal Legend since I first heard about it and the demo sealed the deal before I read any reviews.
Liked the demo, liked the humour but had my concerns over the combat. Been playing the full game since last night and I've got to say I'm disappointed. It's buggy, the combat is too simplistic and it just isn't a lot of fun to play.
At the moment I am just playing for the humour and the plot. The art direction is cool and the writing certainly has a snapple fizzle to it.
Unfortunately it isn't on a par with the sublime Psychonauts. It is early days yet, but it's definately looking a lot closer to 7.9 than a 9.
I feel that although Double Fine and Tim himself excel at humour and original tales he needs to master gameplay mechanics and how to make a game satisfying to control. It is a game after all.
Right, I've given the game about as much time as I'm willing to give....
It's a broken horrible mess. It's buggy, loading and audio cues are all over the place and the fact that it is in fact an RTS in what is the most beguiling aspect of the whole thing.
The demo didn't give any clues as to the game's true nature, and the single player only really serves as a kind of tutorial for the multiplayer. This in itself would be fine if that was actually any good.
I'd heard that giving specific units orders was difficult but until you start playing these battles you don't realise just how broken it makes the whole experience. RTS relies on it's micro management and this game makes everything you take for granted in that genre more convoluted.
So I'm left with just ordering all my troops to a location or to me, yes very strategic. The controls for actual real time combat (a la god of war and it's brethren) is loose and broken and ultimately seems ineffective against any but the weakest enemies in these staged riots. Each battle just left me frustrated.
I say all this with a heavy heart as I was really looking forward to this game being the breath of fresh air that we all craved in a sea of sequels this christmas, but it's a horrid horrid game. As I said before, I liked the writing but I really couldn't be assed with another battle just to see how it all pans out.
It seems that it's had some really positive reviews and I'm glad that some people dig it, but to be frank it seems that some of these scores are unrealistic and are more a reaction to try and root for an underdog when in actual fact, in this case, underdog is what it will stay, for me at least.
Looks like I'll be playing sequels again this year.
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) honest, it all seemed a bit 'last gen'. The action seemed basic and the camera was poor.
rigins........
