A tale of love, demons and metal.
THIS ROCKTOBER
JACK BLACK
IS
THE ROCK `N ROLL ROADIE
IN
BRÜTAL LEGEND: THE GENUINE ROADIE EXPERIENCE
(Rated A for Awesome)
Eddie Riggs, the best roadie for the lamest metal band in existence, accidentally dies during a gig when a giant set piece comes crashing down on his head. It would have been the end of any other guy, but not for Eddie – instead he is somehow transported back in time when Metal was good. No, not the seventies. Earlier. Like, when fighting demons wasn`t behind a desk in office, but in temple of Metal gods with a mighty axe instead of a keyboard. Yeah. As Eddies` particular set of skills gain recognition from the local cutie Ophelia, the roadie joins human resistance group to fight against demon emperor Doviculus. Beheadings ensue.
The strongest point of the game is, obviously, the story. Tim Schafer once again proves that he`s got some mad writing skills. The plot is interesting enough to care about, characters are original and cool, and the dialogues, man, the dialogues are absolutely hilarious, full of metal related (and not only) jokes, easy to pick up even for someone who has spent their life listening to Jonas Brothers. While Brütal Legend starts incredibly strong, the pacing, however, dies down a little, once you reach the open world part, although this is a common problem with sandbox-type games. Anyway, the story has many great moments that keep you going, and I should note that the final boss fatality is jaw-droopingly awesome.
It would be an understatement to call the world of Brütal Legend original. Imagine: you fight demons and other metal creatures in environments that look like Ronnie James Dios` album covers come to life with help of your mighty axe and guitar, ride through the Land of Metal in a hot rod and eventually lead an entire army of metalheads. That`s pretty much BL in a nutshell.
Starting from the beginning, you control Eddie similarly as any other third-person action game. You have one button to slash your axe, one to use guitar attacks and one to block. However, the combat in Brütal Legend is shallow, and, even with the slo-mo fatalities, largely on the `meh` side. What`s worse, the block button and lock-on are nearly useless when confronted by multiple enemies and, since ¾ of the game consists of large scale battles, results only in frustration, what is only enhanced by the crappy hit reception animations from the enemy. You can upgrade your weapons and buy new combos though, however most of them are meant for one-one combat which doesn`t help the situation much. Guitar solos are a nice addition thought – they are, well, guitar solos, that have various effects – one may rally nearby allies around you, another literally melts faces of nearby enemies etc. These solos are crucial in many battles but you are left defenseless while performing one, which can result in an untimely death of your character.
On a brighter note, the hot rod, Druid Plow, or Deuce, as Eddie calls it, is pretty fun to drive around the Land of Metal. Not only it can be used as a matter of transportation, you can also equip it with miniguns, rocket launchers, add more armor or nitro and other stuff like that. Plowing through dudes is a legitimate strategy in combat also, so driving is an essential part of the game.
Take a deep breath now. For nearly the entire development time of Brütal Legend was considered to be a simple hack and slash game. Instead, barely weeks before the release it was revealed that the game is actually a real-time strategy. Words `RTS` and `console` in one sentence are usually used as: "RTS`s don`t work on consoles" and BL proves this right.
During the single player campaign, you will have to participate in numerous Stage Battles – your `command center` is your stage where you produce troops and upgrade the stage. To do that, you use one resource – fans, which sprout from geysers around the map. To gather fans, you build Merchandise Booths on these geysers with a special guitar solo and so does the enemy. When enough metalheads have been produced, you go to enemy`s stage and try to beat the living crap out of it. Here it is revealed why basic combat is so weak – you can (and must) participate in these battles and by making your avatar actually powerful the entire balance of the game would be screwed.
The second biggest problem is that controlling your troops isn`t all that convenient. You are stuck in third person mode all the time, and, although you can fly to get a full view of the battlefield, that makes ordering your army around pretty difficult. First of all, you can't select, let`s say, two melee units, three ranged ones and a healer at once and then send them just anywhere. You either make the entire nearby force to follow the orders or approach one specific unit or give them an individual order. Also, you can only place one beacon to which send your troops to. The AI of your allies isn`t very good either. For an example, units meant for destroying vehicles will attack enemy ranged units. If you want to make them to attack specific targets, placing the beacon on the is simply hard due to the loose controls and standard `attack` order doesn`t prioritize targets.
To make matters even worse, you can`t just kill off any units you don't need, and the strict unit cap doesn`t let you build a big army. More? The pacing for Stage Battles is terrible. First, you have access to only three basic unit types and you`ll spend a lot of fans to simply build decent protection for your base. Upgrades are very expensive, and, since you`ll be making more and more troops to gain and hold control of resources, you probably won`t even bother to unlock half of the remaining units, not to mention the super unit that makes absurdly long time to create.
There are three different factions in Brütal Legend – Ironheade, the human faction, Drowning Doom, dark metal fans, and Tainted Coil, masters of all that`s sick and twisted. You play as Ironheade in campaign. They are the basic `newbie` race, simple and convenient to use. Drowning Doom relies on slow but very tough infantry and has some nasty means of decreasing enemy army`s fighting spirit. Tainted Coil is far the most interesting and unique race. Their stage only produces three types of units but these units can give birth to other units in the middle of the battlefield. Tainted Coil relies on this tactic as well as some big and mean-looking creatures.
The single player portion of Brütal Legend should take about 6-7 hours if you play only for the story, however there are loads of side missions to do and stuff to collect and unlock in the Land of Metal, so if you have hard-on for collecting things, add about 5-6 hours to the mix. Multiplayer is also present, allowing you to fight against the AI (which is WAY better than in story mode) or rock some fools over the Internet. So we can talk about a pretty decent replay value here.
Brütal Legend pleasantly surprises with nice, cartoony graphics and fantastic attention to details. The Land of Metal looks great artistically and aesthetically, especially when it comes to use of colors. It is fun to explore the environment and see the metal-themed vistas. The twisted mind of Tim Shafer has once again created a compelling and completely crazy world.
There are some minor problems, such as occasionally unstable framerate when a lot of stuff is going on, inconsistent animations, choppy transition between cutscenes and gameplay as well as some texture loading problems. Also, there is a mandatory 1.3 GB installation.
Audio is the essence of Brütal Legend. Not only the awesome licensed soundtrack containing 107 songs from 75 different bands, such as Judas Priest, Megadeth, Black Sabbath and others, there are plenty of moody original pieces. Voice acting is God of the Gods tier. Ozzy Osbourne, Lemmy, Robert Halford, Tim Curry, Jenifer Hale and, of course, Jack Black himself deliver a fantastic aural experience. As for the other FX, yeah, whatever, it`s great. Flawless victory.
The biggest problem for me is that Brütal Legend is simply not fun to play. The half-baked RTS-meets-hack-and-slash doesn`t do it for me. Chances are, you`ll like it more and thumb-down my review because I deserve it. Well, whatever, I brought the damn game and tried to enjoy it for it`s worth, even if there wasn`t much of it.
The Good:
+Good story with many hilarious moments
+Godly soundtrack and voice acting
+Nice graphics
+Driving is fun
+Good replay value
+You`ll probably enjoy this game more than I did
The Bad
-Gameplay in general
-Loose controls
-No fun factor
-There won`t be a sequel
-You`ll probably enjoy this game more than I did