Guest Review: Brutal Legend

One of my favorite on-going features here at Bonus Level is our Guest Reviews. Every gaming website does reviews but what makes ours different is that anyone can do them. And just because a game has been done, if you have an opposing view point, we will take that review as well. So if you ever had the itch to write a review or knew what someone was saying was dead wrong send us an email about it and we will get you review going.

Fred contacted me a week or so ago saying that he recently got Brütal Legend and wanted to write up a review of it. So enjoy this weeks Guest Review of Brütal Legend.

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When I first saw screenshots of Brutal Legend, I was stoked. Not ‘stoked’ like some brosef gets stoked after doing three hours at the gym, slapping some hair gel on his thinning hair, and heading out to the club to meet his next helpless rape victim. No! Not that kind of stoked. I was stoked because, not only did the graphics look great, cartoony, and fully metal inspired, but a name in the article popped out to me… TIM SCHAFER.

If you know the name, then you know this name carries with it some great titles including one of my favorite games of all time, FULL THROTTLE. Seeing as how that game was made up of some of the coolest stuff I had seen in a game at the time of it’s release, I was getting more and more excited for the release of Brutal Legend.

Well the day arrived, and unfortunately I was swamped with work, so picking up games wasn’t on the agenda. So I put it on the Christmas list. Christmas time came, I went to the store to pick it up and to my surprise the title was on sale for $39.99… AWESOME! Wait… wait a minute… it’s been out for two months and it’s already been marked down $20.00? Hmm…

Oh well, my lucky day, right?

WRONG. This game is a mixed bag. And not just in terms of ups and downs, but also in terms of gameplay.

The story is fun and the metal themed world is a site to see, but some of the characters, including Jack Black’s character become tiresome at times, and the jokes made don’t always come off as funny as they could have. This problem partially stems from the fact that it’s Jack Black delivering half the jokes. If you’ve seen a Jack Black movie, you expect half the things he says… in this game, mix his performance from School of Rock and King Kong and you’ve got Eddie Riggs, your hero and protagonist.

The gameplay starts off really fun. Great action/adventure, with boss battles and adventures similar to the style of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and instead of a horse, you have a car to travel around in while blasting great metal tunes. Sometimes, you even battle in it. Cool, right? Yep, it is, but unfortunately, somewhere about 2 hours into the game, the gameplay changes and no longer is it an action/adventure title, but a real time strategy. That’s right, the game suddenly becomes Warcraft as your gang of head-banging metal dudes take on 80’s themed hair metal gangs, demons, emo-themed gangs, monstrous demons, bikers and grunge kids… and Tim Curry… as a fucking demon.

The one interesting bit of gameplay that gets mixed into the game, is that while the battles our fought in RTS style, you can still get involved in the battle as yourself, helping out the squads you send out. This unique piece of gameplay keeps the game interesting at times, and brings back the action/adventure aspect, and also introduces a cool style to those used to standard RTS.

But another part that gets annoying is that to progress in the game, you need to continually upgrade your character and car. Most games have this built into the game, so that while you’re playing, you can upgrade your character as you go along. Not this one. In fact, though this game can boast about having an open world, sometimes driving around at lengths to find side missions to complete and get more goodies can get downright annoying, no matter how much Judas Priest you’re blasting.

It’s and adventure that becomes tedious and tiresome, and yes I’m sure many gamers have said, “Fuck this,” and that’s probably why the game has not sold so well and I was able to get it for $40.00.

The things that kept me going were, I wanted to see where the story went, the soundtrack kept me excited, as the music was real “metal.” Not brosef metal like Disturbed or mall metal like Slipknot… no, this was Metal. Some great bands to mention are Judas Priest, Mastodon, Manowar, 3 Inches of Blood, Black Sabbath, and blah blah blah if this kind of music isn’t your bag.

But in the end, the game didn’t deliver on the hopes I had from a Tim Schafer game, and I think a lot of that has to do as a result of the schizophrenic gameplay. Although all forms of the game were fun to play at times, it became way to schizophrenic for me to ever get comfortable in one mode of play or another, only to be ripped away and continually learn new methods and tricks when the next RTS battle occurred.

SUMMARY

GRAPHICS 3.5/5 – Great! A pretty game and the architecture of the metal world are brilliant and pay homage to the metal culture in some humorous ways. A few drops in framerate at times, but over all, this game was never lacking in look.

GAMEPLAY 2/5 – Schizophrenic. It’s as if someone said in the brainstorm for this game, “Let’s make a game that takes pieces of every genre of game out there to make the ultimate gaming experience.” You sir, were brave, and bold. But as many historical figures of our past have proven, being brave with bold ideas doesn’t always lead to great things without consequences. Sometimes it ends in a mess of your own grey matter. One or two things would have been nice, but never allowing me quality time with one mode of gameplay becomes down right annoying, especially when I can eject the game and play a game that lets me stay in that mode.

SOUND 3.5/5 – Great Tunes. Great Sound Effects. But you lose a point and a half for asking Jack Black to recycle his usual antics that anyone can see or hear when he plays in Tenacious D.

LASTING APPEAL 2/5 – The game will take a while to beat, especially when your venturing through the world for hours looking for side missions to boost your character and car. But is being forced to do that mean you’ll stick with the game? I can’t speak on multi-player because honestly, by the time I finished the game; I had a bunch of other games sitting before me that I was ready to jump into.

And how does my scale rate?
5: A new level of gaming that instills the feelings of playing video games for the first time, all over again.
1: E.T. On Atari would kick this games ass.

OVERALL: If you’re interested in this game at all, I can only recommend it as a rental, as I am sure after a week of play, you’ll be ready for the next thing.

Fred is the chief web designer over at The Black hat Creative.