Brutal Legend Review – “Brutally Honest!”
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Brutal Legend - Review
When I first got my hands on ‘Brutal Legend’ I was as excited as an eleven year old girl at a Twilight movie. I love metal. Jack Black rocks. Guitars and axes are a brilliant combination. How could I not love it??
‘Brutal Legend’ has the most entertaining intro I’ve ever seen (Jack Black showing us the hallowed record of the games title), leading to a menu which is the record sleeve and record itself. It’s simple but looks great and is highly amusing.
Yeah, Rock On!
Story – 9
You take the role of world’s greatest roadie; Eddie Riggs (voiced masterfully by Jack Black), and when an accident befalls you on stage you are transported to another world, where demons rule and metal is a weapon. The cut scenes and all the voices are hilarious and look great, taking side swipes at ‘Hair Metal’, ‘Nu Metal’ and several other genres that aren’t classic Heavy Metal. There’s an amazing sound track that accompanies everything in the game, as you would imagine, and cameos from Ozzy Osbourne and Lemmy of Motorhead keep it feeling great and authentic.
As the hard rocking Eddie you are to help local do-gooder and metal head Lars recruit an army and defeat the evil hair rock bands, Goths and demons. You also have a love interest in the form of Lars’ woman, Ophilia which accounts for many of the games amusing cut scenes as Eddie attempts to win her over with Metal and his motor, The Deuce. To show your support for Lars’ cause you must recruit an army of head bangers, rock chicks, roadies, bouncers and other unit types. Each have there own unique personalities and contribute well to the comedy.
The story begins to fade a little towards the end of the game as it seems to gather pace and events unfold quicker than the cut sequences can keep up but its still good entertainment.
Yeah, burning prams has always been a congestion problem.
Gameplay – 7
Eddie has an axe that’s bigger than he is. He has a guitar that can electrocute and incinerate enemies while he spouts great one liners and insults. But tragically the combat is far from perfect. There is no on screen information or HUD at all so you have no idea how much health you have until the screen begins to go red and fade out, by which point you’re usually too screwed to get out of combat to rest and heal. The axe looks good but it’s impossible to judge how much damage you’re dishing out and it doesn’t always feel like your hurting anyone.
Using button combinations you can execute some nice combos using guitar and axe at the same time. The animations look pretty cool but the moves themselves aren’t really anything too new and there aren’t enough of them. The guitar solo’s though ROCK. In a nod to guitar hero you can enter a mini-game at key points, near points of interest or mid battle and play solo’s to summon your mighty ride, ‘The Duece’, command your troops or unleash special moves such as the face melter, which does exactly what it says on the tin to brutal effect.
There are three major components to the single player mode, the general run around smacking everything with your axe, the free roam driving and the Stage Battle’s which are RTS style battles where you command a small army of Metal lovers against those who support inferior music. The controls for the stage battle can be a little fiddly but it’s enjoyable stuff trying to organise the different troops and storm your enemies stage. You build your stage and it produces troops, you then must tap a resource (fans) to be able to upgrade and build more powerful units. It’s an interesting mix with the hack and slash of the other missions, but it suffers occasionally for the same reasons (unable to tell how much damage you are taking/receiving) and it does get repetitive.
Ozzy tends to hang out in dark dingy caves, oh, which also contain collosal amounts of magma in.
Multiplayer – 5
The only multiplayer option is to fight stage battles, either against friends on a map selected by you or randomly pitted against someone else on x-box live. During the multiplayer you can play as one of three bands; The Ironheade metal lovers, Drowning Doom the Goth band and the warped demons of the Tainted Coil. The bands are all lead by a different ‘general’ who has a selection of unique solo’s he or she can thrash out with different effects. Each band also has a unique selection of troops and playing as the different groups does require altering your tactics and approach to the game. While this does give it a little extra life it isn’t enough to carry the multi-player mode which is stagnant and lacks the great story of the single player mode.
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Details
Category: Arcade/ Action Adventure
Age: BBFC rated 15 Years and above
Publisher: EA Games
Brutal
- The best voice acting and most amusing cut scenes I may have ever come across.
- Amazing soundtrack with something for everyone (provided you love metal).
- Stage battles are good fun and the number of units and solo’s to unlock will keep you going for a while.
Tame
- Repetitive combat that’s hard to judge and lacks depth.
- Very limited online modes with little replay value.
- Last few missions feel a little rushed.
Overal Then
Although Brutal Legend certainly has some flaws.
It is a game well worth playing through as it is rewarding and rich in places with a few side missions to keep you busy. The gameplay while not perfect is far from the worst I’ve seen and is worth coping with just so you get to see the great story unfold.
Written & Reviewed By - Paul Riley
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