Of all the games I've been wanting to play this past decade, I think this is the one I was looking forward to most, it's dangerous to have high expectations for a game,
but I really couldn't help myself, and in the end it was so bad that in the weeks before it's release I actually had dreams about it, so high were my expectations.
So now I hold this game in my mortal hands, and set forth on an epic tale of Heavy Metal.
Plot
The story revolves around Eddie Riggs, who is the world's best roadie working for the world's worst "heavy metal" band, kabbage boy.
After an accident occurs on the stage and blood seeps into his belt buckle, he summons the mythical firebeast Ormagöden, which takes Eddie back in time to the age of metal,
where he awakes in a land where humanity is enslaved by the evil Emperor Doviculus.
The land was once rules by a race of titans, who invented heavy metal and left clues for humanity to discover, but nobody knew how to read them.
Eddie, due to his roadie skills, can read these clues, and brings humanity weapons, victory, and the glory of metal!
There is also a really great background story inspired by Scandinavian mythology, about how the world came to be, which you can view through special statues in the game, and is well worth checking out.
Gameplay
The gameplay is basically hack&slash, for which you use your guitar, Clementine (named after Tim Shafer’s daughter) for ranged attacks, and your axe if you want to get up close and personal, and,
as it is usual with hack&slash, you can combine both for combo attacks.
Targeting is done by holding down one of the shoulder buttons and you can switch targets by moving your right analogue stick. It’s nothing special but it works.
You lack a jump button but I really don’t know why you would need one of those, most of the time you’re driving anyway.
Which brings me to your car, the deuce or ‘druid plow’, a hot-rod in which you can move about the world as you see fit, and later in the game you can place things like machineguns, extra armour and more speed to your deuce, as you would.
All of these things can be upgraded in the so-called ‘motor forge’ a giant foundry deep within the world, where the guardian of metal, voiced by a hilarious Ozzy Osbourne, upgrades your car, learns you new attacks or makes your guitar or axe deadlier.
You do this by earning fire tributes, which you can earn by doing story missions, side missions, and a variety of other stuff.
From time to time you have to do a ‘stage battle’ with other characters, I will write about this in the multiplayer bit, as it is technically the same.
You can also use your guitar for solos, which can be used for devastating attacks, calling your army to your location or planting a rally flag.
You do this by pressing buttons in a timely sequence, in time with the rhythm. It’s not as hard as it sounds.
My favourite one is the face melting solo, which literally melts your enemies faces.
There’s another even more awesome one but I won’t spoil that for you.
The Shiny
Graphically, Brütal Legend isn’t based on super state of the art graphics, but it isn’t until you’re a bit further into the game that you see how much ideas and originality are crammed into one game, as everything in the game is influenced by heavy metal in all it’s varieties.
There’s four different factions (actually three) in the game, each inspired by a different kind of metal, and with their own unique world.
There’s Ironheade, which is inspired by classic heavy metal album covers and as such has massive stone effigies in the shape of guitars, anvils, swords, amps and exhaust pipes, there’s trees that grow car tires and beer, a wall made of speakers, and many more.
Than there’s the drowning doom, a group of humans ‘that drink from a sea of black tears’ and gets it’s inspiration from the gothic genre and some of it’s subcultures.
Expect to see gothic cathedrals, tombstones and coffins everywhere. And a dry ice mine, I shit you not.
Lastly there’s the Tainted Coil, of which main bad guy Doviculus is emperor, which got a great deal of inspiration from 16th century painter Hieronymus Bosch’s paintings and also uses lots of S&M influences.
The first faction you encounter however, is basically a parody of your own, and mostly serves to learn you the ropes of stage battles and general gameplay.
They are the troops of General Lionwhyte, who has hair teased up in such a way he uses it to fly, and is based on Glam Metal, which is pretty much a parody of Heavy Metal in the first place.
There’s a weather system, but instead of the usual rain and snow, you get a variety of flaming skies, 70’s purple and doom grey, I invented all of these because I don’t really know how to describe it. Think 70’s-80’s heavy metal album covers and you get a better idea.
Brütal Legend has it’s own fauna as well, with things such as such as raptor elks, razor boars, laser panthers, nightmares and the elusive metal beast, just to name a few. I’ll let your imagination do it’s work.
So yeah, it’s something special all right…
Sound
As a game about heavy metal, the soundtrack is obviously all metal, there’s several types of metal, each inspired by it’s own faction, 108 songs in all.
You can play these only in the deuce, but during key events in the game they will play in the background to accompany the mood of the characters, as is usual with background music.
Voices are provided by a cast of both professional voice actors and heavy metal stars such as Lita Ford, Lemmy, Rob Halford and Ozzy Osbourne.
All of these have characters based on their own personality, which makes them sound a lot more convincing, and I was particularly impressed by Rob Halford, who has two different parts in the game, and Ozzy Osbourne, who is downright hilarious as the guardian of metal.
Your main character, Eddie, is voiced by Jack Black, but he does more than just voice it, he basically is Eddie Riggs, I have to admit I was never a huge fan of Jack Black before (although I like Tenacious D) but he really adds to the character and is putting up a flawless performance.
Bad guy Doviculus is voiced by Tim Curry, who has, as you probably know, played a wide range of bad guys in the past, and is perfect for the role as the delightfully* evil Emperor Doviculus.
*that really is the best word for it
Multiplayer
There is a multiplayer mode in Brütal Legend, and it’s a bit special.
It started life as an RTS, and while the basics of RTS are still there, it isn’t an RTS.
These are called stage battles, and here’s how they work.
Each faction has it’s own stage, which is your base of operations, and is used to recruit troops. The main goal is to destroy the other player’s stage.
As resources you use fans, which sprout from fan geysers, on which you have to build a merch booth to gain more resources. So the more fan geysers you own, the better troops you can recruit. So far the RTS part.
You, as the main player, are the most important person on the battlefield, as you do not only order your troops around, but can also attack the other players directly, this is where it differs from an RTS, as the key to winning is getting right into the action, using solos and teaming up with your own troops (each type of troop has it’s own double team attack, which is far more powerful)
I’ve been trying to compare it to another game but I really think I’ve never seen anything like it. It seems at first that it doesn’t know what it’s trying to be, but if you take the time to get to know it, and don’t play it as an RTS, it’s rather fun.
Most reviewers did see as an RTS, so much so that Tim Shafer made a big post about it on his blog.
It’s hard not to blame them though, as it looks just like one at first, and if you play it as one, you lose.
The bad
As always, there is some bad too, the story missions are over before you know it, which really came as an unpleasant surprise, but luckily you can still play on even after the story missions.
The side missions can be a bit repetitive, and I didn’t find them very challenging, but they’re still fun to do.
Another thing are the solos, apart from attacking and defending, which you will only need in battle, you have to use them to summon your deuce and raise things like motor forges. And when you fail to press the right buttons at the right time, you have to do it again, after your guitar cools down.
I really didn’t mind this however, as it’s basically the same thing as playing your ocarina in legend of Zelda, expect that playing a guitar solo is a bit more awesome.
The verdict
In all, Brütal Legend was what I wanted it to be; A Tim Shafer game, full of quirky humour, awesome and highly original scenery, an excellent plot (if ridiculously short) and good voice acting.
Even if you you don’t like metal but liked Shafer’s previous games, you’ll probably like this too, you can always turn your car radio off and there are no obscure jokes about metal that only the most hardcore devotee will get.
This is really a fresh breath in the gaming landscape as it isn’t the millionth brown game with a ridiculous amount of bloom, and therefore I will look past the short story missions and weird multiplayer and give it a well deserved 9 stars.
Score:
Top review Mr J! I think I shall add this to my wish list
