Marty:
The Plot
You play as Eddie Riggs, a Roadie who is transported back in time to help a forgotten civilisation in their time of need.
The only weapons at Eddies disposal are his trusty Flying V ‘Axe’ which, as luck would have it, generates electricity as Eddie plays which stuns nearby victims, a battle axe and his knowledge as a Roadie. Armed with only these three things Eddie must take control and help overthrow the evil Emperor Deviculus, and maybe get a girl or two along the way.
Luckily for Eddie he meets a few friends along the way to aid his quests. Tell me, who wouldn’t want help from the likes of Ozzy Osbourne and Lemmy when you’re up against the likes of Rob Halford and Tim Curry?
Will Eddie save the day? Will he ever get home? Will he get the girl?
Game Play
If I had to put a label on it I would have to say that Brutal Legend is a Sandbox Hack ‘N’ Slash with RTS elements, Rock Band style game play and the occasional heat seeking missile , which is why it’s a good thing that I’m not in the business of putting labels on things.
Even before the game starts you know that Brutal Legend is going to do things differently. The opening sequence and menu system that Double Fine Productions have put together are a breath of fresh air that I personally feel that everyone should experience; even if you decide to give the game a miss, watch the opening on YouTube.
The actual game opening is equally impressive.
You are introduced to Eddie as he prepares to send the pop band he’s working for onto stage. Things start to go a bit wrong and as Eddie prepares to correct them he talks you through the mantra of the Roadie. As events unfold you’re asked to make a few simple choices that will either tailor the game more to your liking, or, act as a handy set of parental controls. The timing of these choices as superbly done and actually had me restarting the game to see what Eddies responses would have been, had I chosen another setting. As the opening comes to a climax Eddie is transported through a gateway and back in time, where he is instantly confronted by danger and is forced to make a daring escape with a woman he’s only just met in a car you’ve just made from bits of metal that just happen to be laying around.
On the plus side Brutal Legend gives you everything you would expect from a Sandbox game. It has open world driving, your main quests, various side missions and, of course, collectables, a plethora of them. On the down side Brutal Legend gives you everything you would expect from a Sandbox game. It has open world driving, your main quests, various side missions and, of course, collectables, a plethora of them.
Open World Driving
Your vehicle has two weapon spots available, a primary and a secondary. The primary can be upgraded from a machine gun to a rocket launcher to a heat seeking missile launcher with a few other weapons in between. The secondary weapon is more of a defensive option and varies from sonic booms to a mine dropper.
Main Quests
As you would expect it’s the main quests that progress you through the game. These quests alternate between collection missions were the objective is to get to an area of the map and liberate someone/something that will aid your quest, protection missions were you need to escort your ‘Tour Bus’ to a new location and Stage Battles which act as ‘Boss’ sections throughout the game.
The Stage Battles are where Brutal Legend becomes different from most games. This is where the real time strategy comes into play. The general idea is simple; destroy your opponents’ stage. How you do so is up to you.
The currency you need to build units for your army is fans. Fans come from geysers that you will need to build merchandise booths over in order for them to become yours. The more booths you build the more fans you get. The tricky part is defending your booths from the AI while still building the units you need to be able to press forward and win the battle. The difference between Brutal Legend and a normal RTS is that you can be as hands on as you like. You can hack and slash at the enemy to help defend a booth or use any of the solos you have learnt from free roaming to help you. If you die your fans will collect you and resurrect you at your stage but the opposition will be rewarded with an influx of fans.
Side Missions
Hunting missions require you to kill X number of creature Y. Once activated these can be done at any time and your progress will be tracked until the task is complete at which point you can activate the next one.
Racing missions are exactly what you’d expect them to be. Pass through the checkpoints and finish the race ahead of your rival.
Ambush missions are by far the most common and require you to team up with some units from your army to ambush units from a rival faction. A good defence is crucial for these missions because if all your units perish, the mission is over.
Death Rack/Canonnier missions will have you using your vehicle to either directly take out the attacking hoards or to call in cannon strikes ahead of them to try to take them out.
Collectables
As I mentioned above there are a LOT of collectibles to be had here. There are:
•120 Bound Serpents
•13 Legends
•11 Motor Forges
•24 Jumps
•23 Buried Metals
•9 Solos and
• 32 Landmarks
Not to mention all the concept art that is on offer.
Having 232 collectables isn’t necessarily a bad thing as they tend to pop up quite frequently and the fire tributes you earn from then and the missions is the currency that is used for buying upgrades. The problem with the collectable in Brutal Legend is that the game does not tell you how to activate them. I was half way through the game and had just been assuming that I wasn’t meant to be able to access them yet when I unlocked one by complete chance. I then couldn’t help but think how many dozens I had passed by that I would now have to go and hunt down. This simple omission from Double Fine made something that should have been rewarding turn into a tiresome chore.
Online
There is only one option for online play and that is the Stage Battle.
The principles are exactly the same as the Boss Battles in the single player, build booths to get fans, spend fans on units, destroy opponents stage. The difference is that you now have the option of playing as one of the two rival factions.
Although generally all of the basic types of units are the same (melee, ranged, shock attack etc) all three factions are very different and the way you can interact with double team attacks is very unique to the unit and faction.
Matches can be somewhat drawn out if both player decides to fully upgrade their stage and build a diverse army however, more often than not, this isn’t going to be an issue. There are some very powerful units available with minimal stage upgrades and very little fan expenditure. If a player knows what they’re going then a game can be completed in as little as five minutes.
The best thing to do is use the option to play against the AI at various difficulty setting and with different factions and see what works best for you.
Graphics
The cut scenes and the game play in Brutal Legend are like chalk and cheese. While the cut scenes are bright and colourful and well animated; the game play really is the opposite. There are a few nice moments throughout the game but there was nothing that made me stop and just admire the world around me. The creatures looked quite dull and the animations of the patrolling factions are identical every time you come across them. This cookie cutter feel also seeps over into the cut scenes for the side missions. Although some vary, most are identical to the ones before and with no option to skip them you just can’t help but feel that a little more effort was needed.
Speaking of cut scenes and graphics it would be remise of me not to mention the pop in pop out of graphics. The cut scenes for the Racing missions seem to be the biggest culprit of this but it is not exclusive. Upon locating a fellow racer you can see that he is resting against his vehicle but once you’ve activated the cut scene the car vanishes, not for long, but for long enough that you begin to wonder how someone can lean that far over without falling.
The thing is; the world that has been designed should be a great place to explore and admire. The subtle touches that are revealed to you when you activate one of the viewpoints really are very impressive but they just don’t transfer very well back into the game once the cut scene has ended.
Sound
The sound is another subject of contention for me.
The voice acting is some of the best and some of the worst I have come across in quite some time. Jack Black, Ozzy Osbourne, Lemmy, Tim Curry, Lita Ford, Kyle Gass and Rob Halford are all superb. Each one has really given to their prospective roles and committed to the story. This makes watching the cut scenes an absolute joy. Where the voice acting is let down however, is with everything else. Each unit has only one (maybe two at a push) phrase and as you’re driving around you will hear the same phrase called to you over and over again, sometimes by two of the same unit standing next to each other within a second.
As with the visuals of the side missions, the sound is the same. For the vast majority of these cut scenes you will hear the same few lines repeated again and again. On the odd occasion that there is a new dialect, the visuals suffer as a result (see above). I’m not saying that this is the case but it’s as if the design team decided to give you a solid visual with monotonous sound or a varied conversation that cannot support the graphics it needs too.
The soundtrack, as you would expect, rocks. There are plenty of songs to unlock with some real classics mixed together with more modern gems. Any fan of Metal from any era will be able to appreciate the songs on offer here and will probably appreciate it more after a few hours of serpent hunting.
When any game starts well, it’s difficult not to get excited about the prospects of things to come. The problem with this is that after a few more hours you may begin to realise that the game has peaked.
This is the case with Brutal Legend and although it didn’t plummet like a Deuce approaching a cliff with its brakes on full; it definitely did plateau. It was a steady enough ride but neither the game play nor story was immersing enough to make me feel much of anything.
I do not regret the time I put into Tim Shafer’s’ latest offering but I don’t feel that Brutal Legend will not be able to stand the test of time and take its place in people’s hearts the way that the Monkey Island series and Psychonauts have managed to do.
Overall:
7/10
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