Brutal Legend Review

Written by: Darren Cartledge Posted: 6th November 2009

Share:

Digg It

Brutal? yes! Legend?????

Brutal Legend Details:

	Action
	PlayStation 3/Xbox 360
	Double Fine Productions
	EA Games

16+

Out Now

Just when I thought every possible theme for a third person action game had been covered, along comes Double Fine with their Heavy Metal themed action adventure Brutal Legend. But how well does this age old music genre translate into a video game experience? Surprisingly, and perhaps more strangely, quite well!

Brutal Legend places you in the role of Eddie Riggs (voiced and styled after Jack Black), a down trodden roadie few people even notice. However, after an accident at a concert Eddie finds himself in a mysterious yet twisted land occupied by demons and an oppressed human inhabitant. However, Eddie soon discovers that he hasn’t been transported to another world but rather back through time to the age of Metal and he sets out to free mankind from the grip of the demonic coil with the power of music.

The setting for Brutal Legend may sound a little strange and to be honest it is, thankfully though the developers haven’t tried to pass it off as a too serious storyline including humour throughout. Which probably wasn’t too tough a task working with Jack Black and his influence is evident from the off. The games visual style also helps to portray this humour with the over exaggerated features of the main characters to the leather clad demons that wouldn’t look out of place in any of the bondage influenced heavy metal videos from the 70’s and 80’s.

Jack Black isn’t the only star to have lent his likeness to the game Ozzy Osbourne is featured as is Lemmy from Motorhead who are both on hand to help you in your struggle to free the land from the oppressive demon forces. Brutal Legend is truly the most bizarre action game I’ve played lately, but despite this strange mix the game does seem to work, even though the core gameplay is pretty standard for a third person action game. Missions tend to see you trekking into an enemy’s lair in order to obtain items, or supplies that are critical to your fight against the demonic forces occupying the game world. In many of these missions you also free enslaved characters that join you in your revolution and will often aid you during the course of missions. The game does also serve up some vehicle based action, again this isn’t anything overly original but is fairly playable especially as Eddie’s vehicle is highly customisable thanks to the games upgrade system. Vehicle action isn’t just limited to missions, as Eddie is able to summon his hotrod “Deuce” at anytime by playing a guitar riff. As is the norm with action games, Brutal Legend also includes some mini battles and races. These have largely been included as filler, as the games story mode is rather short despite being set in a fairly epic sized world with various different themed areas. This is further confounded by the fact that about half way through the story seems to lose focus and rushes towards its conclusion almost as if it was a movie and the editor decided it was running too long.

As I’ve already touched on, Eddie uses music throughout the game in his battle to defeat the ruling demonic forces. He does this by playing simple guitar cords. These allow Eddie to summon allies, boost abilities and perform devastating attacks on enemies that melt off their faces, or bring a huge airship crashing into them from above. As you travel through the game world, new tablature can be found hidden around to extend the range of attacks and abilities Eddie can perform with his guitar. As well as his guitar and the power of metal, Eddie is also armed with a rather hefty looking axe that allows him to perform some bone crushing melee moves when the need arises.

As you progress through the games story you will obviously reach key points and these are handled in Brutal Legend by Stage Fights. In these strategy style battles each side builds a stage and then merchandise booths over fan geysers. This collected fan power allows you to perform upgrades to your stage giving you access to a wider range of troops and units in order to find success in battles. During the course of these stage battles Eddie also curiously gains demon powers that allow him to take to the skies and get a better overview of the battlefield. Rather disappointingly though this demon power cannot be used outside of these battles and the area you can travel through the air is rather limited, which is a shame considering that it’s quite good fun. The games stage battles on the whole work pretty well, but sadly they do seem to spoil the flow of the mission play and make it feel much more like a strategy title. Also the stage battles seem to be a tad too easy, due to the overly forgiving enemy A.I which seems to back down when getting the upper hand allowing you rally your forces and gain a foot hold. Due to this, the stage battles which are a major part of the game lack any real challenge and regardless of a few shaky moments I never once experienced defeat. This lack of challenge of the stage battles is something that is sadly echoed throughout the game as a whole, and any experienced gamer will sadly find it too easy. Thankfully though you can get a good taste of the stage battles by playing the games multiplayer mode, this allows two players to go head to head in the stage battles and of course unlike the games A.I, if you’re on the back foot then a real player won’t back down resulting in a much more challenging playing experience. Sadly, though these simple stage battles aren’t enough to hold your attention for any real length of time.

As with any music themed game the soundtrack in Brutal Legend is key to its success and the developers have chosen a good selection of heavy metal tracks from the last thirty years. These include rock classics from the likes of Motorhead, Ozzy Osborne, Def Leppard and Motlry Crue to more model metal from the likes of Cradle of Filth and of course Tenacious D. The games soundtrack is also complimented by some pretty solid voice acting most notably from Jack Black and Ozzy Osbourne, other voices tend to be a little lacklustre, but generally are performed well.

Brutal Legend serves up a strange mix of action adventure gameplay and heavy metal that even more bizarrely works quite well. It does provide a fairly enjoyable playing experience, but it’s ultimately let down by a lack of challenge and a story that rushes towards its climax which may leave many disappointed and unfortunately stops Brutal Legend becoming an epic title.