The hardest thing about reviewing Brutal Legend is refraining from using the word ‘AWESOME’ in every sentence, because this game really is just that, awesome. As awesome as it is, it does have some crippling problems, so bad that if this was any other game I would have long ago given up and tossed into the trade pile. Let us start with the positives, of which there are many.
Brutal Legend follows the story of the worlds best roadie, Eddie Riggs, who is voiced brilliantly by Jack Black. Eddie is a roadie for the pitiful nu-metal band Kabbage Boy, during one of their gigs he is killed in the process of saving one of the band members. Blood trickles down onto his belt buckle and the fire beast Ormagöden comes alive on stage, transporting Eddie to his world. The world itself is one of the best I have seen in gaming. Filled with wonderfully imagined scenery and metal puns galore makes it a joy to explore. The first level you find yourself in is a heavy metal inspired land, with gargantuan swords jutting out of the earth, trees spouting metal barbs, massive pieces of engines and walls of amps.
The rest of the island is equally as impressive – from Amazonian forests through snow filled valleys, eerie Goth landscapes and morbid castles – and thanks to the open world gameplay it is great fun to explore. Exploration is very important if you want to get the full enjoyment out of the game. With so many different collectibles, unlocking everything from songs to stat upgrades, you really are going to be kept busy. Exploring is made easy by summoning Eddie’s wheels, the Druid Plow, or Deuce to friends. Although a little chaotic to handle it is great fun to drive, especially when you hit the nitro and go flying off a cliff. To unlock these new lands you have to work your way through the story.
The story, although ridiculous, keeps you drawn in for the duration with numerous plot twists and most importantly – great characters. You and your new friends decide to liberate the lands and gather an army to fight against Doviculus, emperor of the Tainted Coil. Voiced by Tim Curry, he is one of the many brilliantly fleshed out characters that fill the game. Brutal Legend greatly benefits from an impressive list of voice actors and rock legends: Ozzy, Lemmy, Rob Halford, Steve Agee, Kyle Gass and the afore-mentioned Jack Black. I’m always a little cautious about games that boast about their cast, but in Brutal Legend, Tim Schaeffer and Double Fine have cast it perfectly. Eddie Riggs has to be one of my favourite characters of the year, alongside the stage manager Mangus – who sounds a little too much like Otto from The Simpsons – he genuinely made me laugh throughout the game.
Each chapter ends with a stage battle, and this is where I started to fall out with Eddie and company. The stage battles take the form of an RTS game, where you have to head out from your stage and capture outposts, called fan geysers, which you can use to build your army. You get more troop choices as you head through the game, from close combat and ranged troops, to an impressive range of vehicles. Your first few fights will be a breeze as you sweep through the enemy and capture the objective with ease. Once you get to the later battles it is a different story.
I tried everything I could think of to win, from early assaults to slowly building a massive army, but regardless the enemy always whittled me down before I could make any progress. You are supposed to be able to move around and give different troops different commands, but, the allotted controls felt far too clumsy. I ended up running around trying to keep everything in check, ultimately drastically failing. Maybe I missed a trick somewhere and was going all about it the wrong way, but I ended up dropping the difficulty – thus missing out on the medium difficulty achievement – just so I could get through it and get back to having fun.
The one redeeming factor of the stage battles is getting to see all the different units in the game. The art direction that I was raving about earlier continues here with some amazing creations. You can team up with every friendly unit in the game to do special attacks; some personal favourites include standing on top of the roadie’s stack of amps, firing out waves of dangerous feedback; riding any, and every, creature in the game and charging into clumps of enemies; leading the headbangers in a death defying mosh-pit, smashing our faces into anything that came in our reach. The Black Tears (goths) had some of the truly eeriest units in the game – prams that shot out little dolls, decapitated heads that walked about with their long hair in a spider like fashion, creepy old fashioned female ghosts with billowing dresses and umbrellas – all of them deserved to be in a Tim Burton film.
The impressive design in the game lent itself to every aspect of Brutal Legend, helping to make it so much fun. Cruising around the lands doing side missions and admiring the brilliant art direction is what I enjoy the most. The side missions, although repetitive, are strangely addictive. I cleared every single one before heading to the second area and had a really good time doing it. They take the form of killing enemies (in a variety of different ways), races and hunting missions. This may sound a little boring, but when you factor in the fantastical scenery and couple that with one of the most ridiculous, yet purely awesome, soundtracks to greet gaming, then you are onto a winner.
The soundtrack features 107 songs ranging from almost every sub genre of metal. Some of these tracks unlock to fit with your surroundings and others are unlocked via collectibles hidden around the expansive map. If you are a fan of metal, like me, then you will love the soundtrack, so much so that now I skip through 70 odd tracks to find the perfect song for the setting. An immense soundtrack for what seems to be an immense game; the playing area is huge with a large amount of collectibles and a massive range of characters. Maybe Tim Schaeffer has tried a little too much?
Add in an online mode that I have not played yet, largely as it is all about the stage battles (and you know my opinion on them), then you really do get a feeling of the size of Brutal Legend. On a fast play through I completed the story in around eight hours, if I really took my time and explored everything first, rather than after, then I could see me playing it for around twenty hours. I just wish that the RTS segments had not been added and the story was more fleshed out with unique missions. The imaginative level design really begged to be used more than it has, as so many amazing locations are just hidden away with no real use.
Even with these downsides I had an absolute blast playing Brutal Legend. It was an education in heavy metal and an impressive piece of game design (even if I do not agree with a lot of it). More developers should follow Tim Schaeffer’s footsteps and be bold enough to try something new.
VideogameUK verdict: 7.5/10
