Review: Brutal Legend

How does one review a game like Brutal Legend? There’s been so much hype, such anticipation, and more than a little uncertainty surrounding this game that its propensity to please everyone has been more difficult than usual. Tim Schafer, the game’s designer, has been a gamer’s darling for a long time. His work on the original The Secret of Monkey Island is like a timeline dot in the history of gaming, and his solo ventures, Grim Fandago and Psychonauts, have both won games of the year awards from various publications. With Brutal Legend, he wanted to create a world where all these heavy metal bands singing about killing orcs and marching to war could find an imaginary home. He did create that, the world is immense and epic in every way, but did he create a game that would live up to his reputation? Did he create a Legend?

If anyone asked me my opinion, I would say yes, but this is supposed to be a review of the game. It’s not a fanboy’s blog. I’m supposed to be critical and find fault and find praise and tell you, a reader, if this game is worth your precious time and money. That’s what I’m going to do, even if I feel that, despite all its fault, this game should find its way into the heart of every gamer alive. With this knowledge in mind, read on for the goods and bads and uglies, and know that whatever I say here is said objectively, leaving my love of Schafer, my love of metal, and even my love of Jack Black at the door. Mostly.

Anyone who has played the demo should be familiar with the beginning of the game. Players step into the leather boots of Eddie Riggs, voiced by the loved and hated Jack Black. Riggs is a roadie in a world where real Rock has been supplanted by commercial, any-style-goes, plastic music, and the “tween demographic” is the buzz phrase of the day. Basically Riggs dies, wakes up in metal heaven, and proceeds on his real adventure.

The first thing that stands out upon entering the metal world is how amazing the vistas look. Schafer made an appearance on the Jimmy Fallon show not too long ago and mentioned album covers of the 70s and how they always depicted these sweeping, fire-blasted vistas with scantily-clad men and women wielding gigantic medieval weaponry and how his world would bring those covers to life. It does. The landscape is littered with giant statues, crumbling Stonehenge-like monuments, plants and trees in the shapes of instruments and motorcycle parts, and mangy, metal creatures everywhere.

Riggs’ mission begins with an escape from a horde of angry demons. He quickly meets the love interest and female side of his coin, Ophelia, and together they flee the nasties and make their way to the stronghold of humanity, Bladehenge (cue metal riff). It is this headlong flight down a crumbling mountain, which is subsequently the entire demo, that gives players the basic rundown of how to play. Riggs learns a combo or two, how to drive the Druid Plow (your insanely awesome, upgradeable vehicle for the duration of the game), and even gets to slay a boss. Combat is simple enough. Riggs carries around a giant battle ax and a guitar. The ax slices open heads and the guitar both calls down lighting from the skies and sets things on fire. Holding a respective button down enables a power attack. Throughout the adventure, Riggs can purchase more combos, different ax treatments (giving him things like fire damage or life draining), and even different guitar strings for passive boosters.

There is a lock on button that must be held down, but is also completely voluntary as the programming is clever enough to swing at or fry whatever’s closest. Health and ”mana” are invisible, constantly regenerating entities. Riggs will get to a point where his guitar is “too hot,” indicated by it actually glowing red, and he will need to stop burning/shocking things for a few seconds until it’s ready again. The balance is good. Riggs can never sit off in a corner spamming his guitar attacks forever, but neither does it take a noticeable amount of time for it to cool down. Health is balanced similarly. Players’ only indication of impending death is a red flashing of the screen. However, running off and not getting beaten on for a few seconds is enough to ensure a nice regeneration.

Melee combat isn’t the only dish served in Brutal Legend. Riggs has a few options at his disposal for dispatching freaks. For one, the Druid Plow can be upgraded to shoot bullets, missiles, and even lightning bolts (or it can just ram things). Riggs can also team up with allies to pull of special moves, some of which by endgame are truly devastating.

I suppose at this point I should mention the warfare of Brutal Legend. I don’t think many people anticipated the real-time strategy aspects of the game. It’s about heavy metal. Strategy isn’t the first word that comes to mind. But it’s also a game about war, and war requires strategy, and so we have real-time battles played out much like the Warcraft-y RTS games. However, it has a twist.

As the story unfolds, Riggs and his allies find themselves fighting three factions of enemies. These three opponents are basically rock cliches. The first is Lionwhyte and his hair bands, personified by an appetite for fashion and money. The second is The Drowning Doom goth rock army, personified by sadness and gloom. The third is…well I’m not sure exactly. Perhaps bondage rock? It’s called the Tainted Coil and it consists of many leather clad demons. Throughout the game, Riggs and Ironheade (his appropriately named wartribe) battle against these three factions in large scale battles. Riggs acts as commander, but in a “defense of the ancients” approach he also has the capability of engaging in combat himself. Not only that, but at a certain point in the game he is granted flight, giving players the vision capabilities of most RTSs without taking away the focus on Riggs. There are resource nodes in the form of “fans” to gather, multiple units to unlock and summon with Riggs gaining more throughout the game, and objectives to meet, which take the form of the destruction of the enemy stage.

This is really the portion of the game that might draw the most controversy. Real RTS fans will find it maybe dumbed down, or too different from the RTS staples of PC gaming. Console gamers will not quite understand what’s happening if they’ve never played an Age of Empires or Starcraft. Personally, I loved it. It was a way to bring an RTS style to consoles, blend it with action, and as unrealistic as this game is, it added a realism for me. Players always control Riggs, so this omnipotent camera existent in so many RTSs doesn’t play here. Instead, it’s just Eddie zooming around, giving commands, slashing off heads, and really just being the focus of the entire battle. I’ve never had any military game make me feel so much like the general of an army. Theoretically, I could have just hovered in midair directing troops. Or I could have tried soloing the entire enemy army. It allows freedom in its method of employment. I enjoyed it, some won’t.

There are a few more things I want to say about the good of Brutal Legend. The voice work and star appearances are legendary. Tim Curry as the demonic villain is all kings of amazing. Black never ceases to entertain, though some of his lines get stilted during side missions. I will not spoil who is in the game because their initial appearances are fun. Any fans of rock and in particular its metal branch will know these dudes (and lady) when they first appear. I will spoil one with a screenshot because I wanted to show how insanely well his in-game image was done. His dialogue also redeems him from that awful show he did. The game also offers much in the way of unlockable fare, both in-game use stuff and fluff like new songs and such. The soundtrack is indeed brutal. Kudos to the team who managed to get all these licenses.

Now for the bad. The game is very short. By no means is it unfinished or abrupt. The story flows very well and ends even better. It’s just not a long experience. The replay value is there because it’s superbly fun to play through and there’s an RTS-flavored multi-player aspect. Some of the side missions are also incredibly repetitive. The fun ones make that all right, but the semi-boring ones just make it a chore. The lack of some type of fast-travel option is annoying by endgame when travelling from one side of the map to the other takes ten to fifteen minutes. I appreciated a large, open map and always will, but with all the magical hubbub inherent in the game, no teleportation option was odd. Thus objectively, I can’t give this game the insanely high score that I’d like to. If it were longer, if it went more in-depth with a few of the aspects that it toyed around with, and if it blended a few ease of passage elements into its exploration then I probably would. As it stands, despite my love, I have to dock it points. I still feel as though everyone should play it. It’s like your first rock concert. You won’t forget it, and even if you smell like smoke and vomit by the end of the night, it will still have been worth the ride.