Hello everyone. I apologize for my long absence from the blogging. Between being laid off, and having to relocate, and find a new job with pending bills, etc. etc, I was distracted. Now I have returned, and I got some stuff to talk about.
For now though I will leave you with a review:
Brutal Legend – Epic. Brutal. Game.
Brutal Legend comes from Double Fine Productions, and was released by Electronic Arts early October. It was one of the titles Activision dropped after it’s merge with Vinvedi. It stars Jack Black as Eddie Riggs, a roadie who longs for the old days of Metal music and style. He’s killed during concert and through some mystical artifact he’s sent to a world that lives, breaths, and whose very existence thrives on the Metal world. The landscape, the characters, the story, and of course the music is all inspired by this epic style of music. But how does it fair as a video game? Let’s get ready to dive into the mosh pit!
Overall Style – The game design is one for the ages. It is inspired by the world created by heavy metal music and their album covers. Everything from the worlds lore, to the land design, to the characters, weapons, and magical music. It’s Epic. The enemies and allies are epic. Hell, it’s just crazy how involved the design is in this game. It’s one of the reason it’s one of my favorites. Did I forget to say that it’s Epic?
Game Design – Although overall the game works, sadly there are glitches here and there that could have been ironed out before release. Some of these are character model facial expressions snapping from one expression to another. The repetitiveness of some animations. The camera breaking through the ground while you drive. I want to forgive this, but it was a constant issue that, although didn’t detract from the big picture, just seemed a little sloppy on the developers part to not fix these issues, which take away from the total quality to the game.
Game play – One thing this game goes for is trying to infuse several genres’ of game into one – driving, hack n slash, RPG, and RTS (Real Time Strategy). A fun as each section is, they are all very simplified versions of what you’d normally see. Considering the type of game this is, This simplification was not necessarily a bad thing. It might pose a problem to those who weren’t expecting such elements to come into the mix, but It makes for an interesting experience, to say the least. But unfortunately it is one of its weakest points.
Voice Acting – From the likes of Jack Black to Ozzie Osbourne to Tim Curry, the cast is an assembly of metal and acting icons that fit perfectly with the atmosphere that has been created for Brutal Legend. Surprisingly they pull it off very well for most not being voice actors and really give an added layer of believability to the whole piece.
Characters – Some likenesses are use and/or inspired by the actors portraying them (see Ozzy for one). All are very much in tune to the world around them, and are believable given where the story takes place. Even the NPC generic solder types are interesting and believable.
Story – Basically you’ve got a couple quests going on throughout the overarching story. Eddie is trying to find out why he got sent to this place, while trying to build up an army against Doviculus (our main villain) who’s oppressing the people of the land. There’s a love story too, and you are having to recruit different people to join in the pending war. The side quests don’t do too much except for maintenance to your borders, which all in all don’t really matter, as their only real purpose is to help explore the area and get experience (in this case, honorable flames of metal) to get more upgrades for your gear. There are portals of information in the form of winged gargoyles that give you bits of the lands history, and eventually help reveal Eddies true lineage. My only issue overall was at times Eddie just accepted the world, or would know about a piece of the world he shouldn’t. This might be an oversight to the writers, or to the development crew. I’m a stickler details, but overall the delivery was solid.
Game replay ability: Overall once you play through the game and get all the hidden stuff, history bits, songs, etc, you’re probably not going to want to play again The story is very linear and there’s no other way to really go about playing it. There is online multiplayer for the stage battles, but that’s about it’s only real replayable factor.
Final Verdict: This game is worth playing because of its unique design and how in incorporates such diverse game play styles and has a truly unique world and story, but it has some rocky mesh of battle controls, the game lasting only about 11 hrs or so, and has a pretty linear story. If you're a real fan of metal this would probably be a keeper, but if your just around for the ride, I would rent this one.
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