Brutal Legend Review

The camera zooms out and pans around an island of skulls, as a shredding guitar solo can be heard in the background. Epic heavy metal moments like this come courtesy of Brutal Legend. A new IP from the creative force behind the excellent but rather unpopular “Psychonauts.”

Your cast into the role of Eddie Riggs (Jack Black); a roadie who through unexplained magical circumstances gets transported to an alternate world by a metal beast that comes alive out of the stage you created. In this alternate world, you help to raise an army called “Ironheade” to take on enemy forces and take back the sacred grounds. One thing you realise early on is that this is a very clear parody of the dispute between three different genres of rock: heavy metal, emo and glam rock. Besides that, the story is simple, with a twist so obvious that it’s impossible to miss it coming. However, the comedy writing that mixes slapstick humour and mature comedy to great effect manages to keep you enthralled until the end.

The graphical prowess of Brutal Legend isn’t great technical-wise; but from a creative standpoint it’s among the best of the year. Everything is accentuated, colour palettes change for every world you explore, creating a beautiful and varied world that you actually want to go and explore. The atmosphere created by the game is pitch perfect with the audience of rock fans it is aimed at. You can tell that a lot of time has been dedicated to making each scene of the game, and each vista of the map (accentuated by the sweeping ‘binocular’ moments) just helps you realise how every section of the

Game-play appears varied on the surface; but this is at the sacrifice of significant developments in this area. The third person controls feel adequate, with little fighting combos you can perform, and player controlled guitar solos that can change the in-game world and assist you in combat (personal favourite solo being the face melter). The RTS sections felt too simple; making it a seesaw affair as you take fans and vice versa. Nothing else really happens in this department.

The game-play is definitely the weakest part of the package if you look at it from what is missing; but if you look at this differently, you can see that they’ve utilised several game-play types and made them simplistic to make an overall accessible and enjoyable title (most of the time).

The real-time strategy single-player is dissected and used for the multiplayer section of the game; which runs with minimum lag on the main hand. Besides this, it’s a relatively standard affair of online capabilities: leaderboards and stat keeping. Not really an enticing package to keep you coming back for more.

Which leaves me with an interesting dilemma as to how to judge this game. In terms of the in-game atmosphere created through visual and audio, Brutal Legend stacks up among the elite in terms of creativity and just sheer addiction. The vistas show real heavy-metal flair and the soundtrack is pitch perfect for a game of this calibre. However, the game-play is a hit or miss affair; making it easily accessible to newcomers; but not presenting any complexity at all for more play beyond the story mode.

It’s one fatal flaw that stops this game from being the best title you can purchase. But if you go in expectant of these issues, and play it for the short term, be prepared to raise your horns for the most heavy metal gaming experience of this generation.

Definitely worth a rental.

Share