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If you are a Tim Schafer fan, this game is everything you hoped it would be... except for one nasty little surprise. The single-player campaign is a measly 6 hours (and that's being generous). I'm not a multiplayer kind of person and if you share that sentiment, wait until this one drops in price. Once it's under $30 or so, it'll be worth every penny. Right now though, I felt a little cheated paying full price for half of a game.
Outside of that though, this game is all-around hardcore awesome! If you like multiplayer or don't mind the SHORT singleplayer campaign, then buy this now! Otherwise, you may want to wait a bit for a price drop.
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Let me preface this review by saying that I am not a huge fan of metal music nor of Jack Black. I listened to some Ozzy when I was growing up, and I think Jack Black is OK, but those weren't the reasons I bought this game. In fact, the first time I heard about this game, I had zero interest in it. However, playing the demo, reading some interviews with Tim Schafer, and seeing some of the art behind this game completely changed my mind.The Pros:
The art in this game is fantastic the world, the character design, the "legends" you uncover, even the user interface are all a joy to encounter. I never got tired of finding a new viewpoint and watching the camera pan across some fantastic heavy metal landmark. And the various heavy metal demons they've thought up are brilliant.
The story is top notch. The plot of the main quest, and especially the "legend" back story are really well done.
The voice work is truly excellent. It really brings the characters to life.
The humor maybe I have the mind of a 13 year old, but the game made me laugh out loud several times and kept me with a constant mental grin.
The music even though I'm not a huge fan of the genre, it really fits the game world.
The world continues once you beat the game you can keep exploring or finish side missions you haven't yet completed. And there seems to be a bridge to nowhere maybe a possible DLC single player continuation? I sure hope so.
The Cons:
The single player campaign is short. I don't think you are really enjoying it if you finish it in 6 hours like some are claiming, but I had about 3 really in-depth sittings before I finished it.
The time you spend on the ground with your axe is even shorter. I enjoyed the first couple missions the most, where the game had you dungeon crawling a bit and defeating a boss enemy at the end. Gameplay shifts quickly to the troop directed stage battle mechanic, which I wasn't really expecting.
The side missions are repetitive, and actually not all that numerous. I finished them all shortly after beating the game. Make sure you seek out the uniquely named side missions though some of them are real gems.
Other Thoughts:
You will be doing a lot of driving around. Several of the missions involve racing your car or driving around and blasting things. I actually enjoyed this part of the game, but it does seem like you are constantly in the Deuce.
The world is kind of small it's not as expansive as say Fallout 3 or Oblivion. But I think it suits the game pretty well.
You can shock just about any four legged creature and ride it I don't think I really realized this until after I beat the game. I don't think it will particularly help you much during the game, but it's kinda fun =D
After completing the game and exploring what I thought was pretty thoroughly, I've only completed about 40% Of the game according to my trophy score. I only discovered a little more than half of the bound serpents, and I find myself lacking the motivation to "complete" the scavenger hunting and the rest of the single player trophies. (How in the world can there possibly be that many things still left to find??)
I'm not a huge fan of the RTS style stage battles (I know Tim Schafer claims it is NOT an RTS, but..) I haven't yet played a multiplayer stage battle and I'm not real enthusiastic about doing so, and that is a BIG part of the replay value. You'll probably enjoy the game a lot more if you like the stage battles, but I'm not sure what type of player they are aimed at. For hardcore RTS players I'm sure it's really simplistic, and for those of us who just prefer to hack and slash, it starts to become a chore. You may enjoy them, but it didn't float my boat.
Overall this is still one of the best games I've played all year.Brutal Legend is everything it was hyped to be, which is an extreme rarity in the world of video games. It's fun, it's clever, it's well written, it's pretty, it sounds great. What it is not, however, is long. While every element of the game ranges from enjoyable to fantastic, reaching the end in fewer than six hours was more than a little anti-climactic, and detracted fairly seriously from my overall opinion of the title.
There are numerous side quests scattered throughout the world (and the world IS open--roam all you like to kill time), and the six hour timer doesn't include those--fair is fair; I could've gotten more time out of the game. The problem there, though, is that most of the side quests are carbon copies of other side quests--to such an extent that if you take a look at them, they're using the exact same name and objectives.
I would sincerely recommend the game to anyone prepared to pay full price for a game they can finish in two sittings (or one marathon). Anyone else, though, I'm afraid ought to wait for a price reduction, or rent. It pains me to say it--I really wanted to love Brutal Legend--but it's true. I'll be trading it in (which I virtually never do), and repurchasing when it hits bargain bins.
Read Best Reviews of Brutal Legend Here
"Oh man...I hope I haven't been slaying hot chicks this whole time!"Damn you Tim Schafer. You've been gifted with the ability to turn the most outlandishly wacky ideas (and not to mention potentially unmarketable) into some of the most funny and original games ever created. This makes you a godsend since most games these days are neither original nor funny (even when they try their hardest I'm looking at you Halo and Grand Theft Auto clones). While I speak from a lesser-exposed point of view (I haven't yet had the pleasure of playing The Secret Of Monkey Island or Grim Fandango), I have played Full Throttle, Day of the Tentacle, and Psychonauts and I know a special game when I see it. While Full Throttle and Day of the Tentacle were fun, Psychonauts is Schafer's first grand work, and one of the best games of the sixth generation. Psychonauts was full of all kinds of wacky characters, über-creative levels, subtle dark humor, innovative gameplay mechanics, responsive controls, and mature themes under all those bright colors (the Memory Reels are quite tragic and sad, mirroring the losses and hardships we've all faced). I consider Psychonauts to be one of the finest games ever made, and I guarantee that no matter what type of gamer you are, there's something for you in Psychonauts. And y'know what? This was Schafer's first game to be released on a console. Talk about starting with a bang! But with the video game market shunning innovation and constantly reproducing the same drivel over and over (I can't wait for another futuristic first person shooter that blatantly rips off Halo or Madden: The Same Game As Last Year), would Schafer be able to continue his tradition of creating something original in a sea of unoriginality?
Thankfully yes! Enter Brütal Legend, a game about heavy metal, made by a metalhead, for metalheads. While this will most likely turn off some people, it is insanely fun for me and will be for anyone who gets the slightest enjoyment out of listening to heavy metal. Pretty much everything about the game is great, save for a few minor things. The level design, characters, controls, gameplay, and especially, the soundtrack are all top-notch.
On the surface, the game is a basic hack-n-slash with free roam that turns onto a real time strategy (RTS) game at certain points. The hack-n-slash part is fun; you have an upgradeable battle axe and guitar that serve as your weapons, as well as a customizable hot rod, dubbed "The Deuce", armed with weapons and nitro. You can also perform solos with the guitar, similar to playing the the ocarina in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. They range from summoning The Deuce, playing a literally face-melting solo against enemies, and my personal favorite, calling in an air strike from a giant Zeppelin. While I don't care for RTS's, with the exception of Command & Conquer, it works here and is integrated nicely in the heavy metal universe. Instead of using gold or harvesting some other resource for funds to buy and build units, your "currency" is fans. You construct "merch booths" that spawn fans, which allows you to create new units for your army. The more merch booths you construct, the more fans you're allowed. Your home base is a stage which you must protect. You have all the usual units, but with a wonderful heavy metal spin: infantry are headbangers, ranged weapons are groupies with guns, tanks are skull covered ballistas, stealth guys are roadies carrying speakers, etc. The imagination and design of these things is amazing and heartfelt, showing Schafer and the design team really have a love for the source material. That being said, the RTS element is my least favorite part of the game. While the victory is indeed "brütal" when you win, the controls are a bit lacking in this regard. Issuing attack/defend commands can be a pain, and controlling an individual unit is nearly impossible. The cool part is that you can jump right into the battle and start dealing out death personally along side your troops.
The strategy element isn't really there, but that's OK for me. My "strategy" was to spawn as many units as possible, while upgrading my stage to produce more powerful units, and go gung-ho and destroy everything. This worked well until I realized you could spawn The Deuce and use it IN battle. This made things ridiculously fun and much easier since I upgraded it to maximum kickass-ness with missile launchers, flame jets, and one heck of a battering ram. I was shooting the bad guys, setting them on fire and running them over while simultaneously spawning more and more troops to help me kick butt.
The other missions are standard (and a tad repetitive) as far as most games go: recruit these people for your army, escort your caravan to the next area, stage battle, repeat. This isn't really a complaint because the repeated missions are always done in new and beautifully designed areas, so it still manages to stay somewhat fresh. There are side missions to earn you "fire tributes", which serve as the game's currency and let you upgrade your inventory. The game also has tons of things to unlock, collect and discover. I get an immense satisfaction from collecting stuff, so this made the game even more fun for me. Brütal Legend has upgrades, concept art, new solos, and new songs you can unlock by finding certain things. You can also free "bound serpents" to give you health and armor upgrades and find legends that tell the history of the metal land. And the game looks absolutely stunning. The entire game world is designed in the style of heavy metal album covers, conveying epicness in every sense of the word. Google Frank Frazetta and Boris Vallejo to get a sense of the game's style.
The soundtrack is the best part of the game. A good deal of my time was just spent driving around listening to The Deuce's radio, dubbed "The Mouth Of Metal". All different genres of metal are present here in the game's 108 songs, including the originators of heavy metal Black Sabbath, the thrash metal of Motörhead and Megadeth, the 80's hair/glam metal of Mötley Crüe, the modern power metal of DragonForce, and tons of tracks by lesser known but utterly awesome artists (Brocas Helm, Omen, Riot, etc.) that perfectly compliment the game. I think this is why I found the game to be so damn good compared to other reviewers because I truly love music, especially heavy metal, and because of this I was able to have more fun with the game than the average "radio listener". The original score by Tim Schafer's long time collaborator Peter McConnell is also superbly done.
And mark my words: Brütal Legend will suffer "Psychonauts Syndrome", receiving a decent critical reception but not becoming highly regarded until later.
So the bottom line? Brütal Legend rocks! While it's not without its flaws, it is lovingly crafted by true fans of metal and will be much more enjoyable to those that like metal. It may turn off the casual, but I say definitely check this one out.This game is artistically and stylistically beautiful. And because it comes on bluray disc the HD sequence in the beginning looks fantastic. The game is more than decent. What is annoying is from time to time the camera's do odd things that make it difficult to do some moves.
Its apparent that from the very beginning that you will have to remember a bunch of special moves. They do a good job building this training into the narrative of the story. What really doesn't work for me is the overall game play.
Yes, it looks awesome, and is fantastic to go into the album covers of my youth. However, when it gets to the game play and doing moves with others that are supposed to assist you, it is often hard to pull off, not in a you suck and cant do it hard, but in the WHY WONT THIS WORK sort of way. I can abide some minor frustration game play, sometimes this game has more than tolerable issues with movement or fighting. This level of frustration ruins all of the fantastic artwork, open world, and even the excellent narration.
About the narration:
Jack Black is really funny with the context specific comments. He comes at this from the viewpoint of a monster roadie that has been stuck doing a boy band for some time. He is set free when he is killed by the massive stage set. Kind of weird; when did New Kids on the Block ever have a metal god as their stage set. Anyway, from this beginning Jack Black takes you on a journey that is both interesting and funny.
It is a very well made game, just needs some help with the controls. This may be patched at some point so keep tuned, seems like it is fixable. As it stands its a pain in the buttocks.
Pros:
>> open world that is both fantastic, and \|;;| a joy for us over 30 that can remember vividly the glory days of metal.
>> Narration by Jack Black and guest appearances by Lemmy and Ozzy + more.
>> Funny characters
Cons:
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