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E3 2009: Brutal Legend
June 5, 2009 | 12:09 PM PST
What the Game's About
Brutal Legend is a perfect example of why we adore the 'new' Electronic Arts. Here's a game that, on paper, makes almost no sense for a publisher to get behind. Tim Schafer may be rightfully hailed as a comedic genius and adventure artisan, but that doesn't change the fact that his resume doesn't have many blockbusters. The game is insane from a marketing standpoint, since it celebrates an over-the-top mythos surrounding a music genre that only managed to climb out of the underground long enough to be attacked by parents groups for being evil. Yet here Brutal Legend stands in all its glory beneath the banner of one of the world's largest gaming publishers, and it is awesome.
What's Hot
The world of Brutal Legend is a collage of heavy metal mythos and imagery, littered with swords and sorcery, demons, leather, blood, fire, skulls, boobs and all the other great stuff that terrifies Tipper Gore. All the trademark elements of the heavy metal mythos are exaggerated to a hilarious degree, making the game as much a loving tribute as it is a biting satire of a culture that is often guilty of taking itself way too seriously. Exploring this exotic realm feels like diving into a classic heavy metal CD cover, a genuinely unique fantasy world that's incredibly entertaining to uncover. If you don't come into Brutal Legend as a metal fan, there's a hefty chance you'll leave with the urge to expand your album collection.
Tim Schafer has amassed an all-star cast of metal royalty to voice the major characters in Brutal Legend, including the likes of Ozzy Osbourne, Rob Halford, Lemmy Kilmister, and Lita Ford. Jack Black takes on the role of protagonist Eddie Riggs, and spouts off approximately 1600 lines of dialogue over the course of the game. Like many Tim Schafer gamers, the first rate writing is what really makes Brutal Legend stand out, with characters trade wonderfully overwrought, pseudo-medieval banter and aggressively rude one-liners, all laced with in-jokes and references to metal bands both classic and obscure. Whereas characters in most games repeat the same phrases with every attack, Jack Black unloads fresh material with every swing of his axe. The story cinematics that book-end the action had me laughing loud enough to be heard clearly above the ambient noise of EA's booth.
The gameplay in Brutal Legend follows the Zelda formula, combining relatively simple combat with exploration, environmental puzzle-solving and gigantic boss battles. We only had the chance to try out two of the weapons at Eddie's disposal, the great Separator axe and his trusty guitar Clementine. The axe does its job, separating the heads and limbs of enemies from their bodies, while Clementine provides magical fire-power in the form of lightning bolts and pyro explosions than send enemies skyward. If Eddie is fighting alongside an ally, the two can team up for a more damaging tag-team maneuver. Combining various attacks into combos is intuitive, effective, and fun. The controls are smooth, the camera is flawless, and the enemies generally erupt in satisfying fountains of blood. There's nothing here that will put the likes of Ninja Gaiden to shame, but the combat never felt repetitive or boring during our playtest.
Link may have been stuck riding a horse, but Eddie is a modern-day metal-head and as such, has access to something a little more aggressive. You'll unlock a hotrod early in the game, and it will serve as the main mode of transport across the massive game world for the rest of the game. The hot-rod factors into story missions as well, as we used it to race across a crumbling bridge, defeat a huge serpentine boss, and escort a tour bus filled with allies across the overworld, using machine-gun turrets and side-mounted flame-throwers to take out Harley-riding demonoid creatures. The hot-rod controls pretty smoothly in general, but the e-brake turns necessary to evade enemy attacks feels a little off.
What's Not
Gameplay-wise Brutal Legend is shaping up to be a solid title, but it's really the writing, humor and outlandish atmosphere that take it up that critical notch from 'good' to 'great.' As with other Tim Schafer titles, you probably don't have to be an expert or even a fan of the subject matter being skewered, but it certainly allows you to get more out of the jokes being tossed around. More critically, if you don't share Schafer's sense of humor then you're not likely to enjoy the comedy regardless of whether you're a metal fan or not. If you take the comedy out of the equation, you're left with a collection of very good gameplay elements – some fun combat, a large world to explore and some army building to mechanics - but you're missing that special ingredient that really makes the experience something special.
Outlook
Throw up the horns, for the time hath come to rock! Fun, hilarious and genuinely unique in tone and subject matter, Double Fine's latest is one of very few games on the E3 show floor that tempted me back for a second and third play-through. Brutal Legend is shaping up to be another fantastic adventure born out of Tim Schafer's delightfully warped imagination.
Brutal Legend is a perfect example of why we adore the 'new' Electronic Arts. Here's a game that, on paper, makes almost no sense for a publisher to get behind. Tim Schafer may be rightfully hailed as a comedic genius and adventure artisan, but that doesn't change the fact that his resume doesn't have many blockbusters. The game is insane from a marketing standpoint, since it celebrates an over-the-top mythos surrounding a music genre that only managed to climb out of the underground long enough to be attacked by parents groups for being evil. Yet here Brutal Legend stands in all its glory beneath the banner of one of the world's largest gaming publishers, and it is awesome.
What's Hot
The world of Brutal Legend is a collage of heavy metal mythos and imagery, littered with swords and sorcery, demons, leather, blood, fire, skulls, boobs and all the other great stuff that terrifies Tipper Gore. All the trademark elements of the heavy metal mythos are exaggerated to a hilarious degree, making the game as much a loving tribute as it is a biting satire of a culture that is often guilty of taking itself way too seriously. Exploring this exotic realm feels like diving into a classic heavy metal CD cover, a genuinely unique fantasy world that's incredibly entertaining to uncover. If you don't come into Brutal Legend as a metal fan, there's a hefty chance you'll leave with the urge to expand your album collection.
Tim Schafer has amassed an all-star cast of metal royalty to voice the major characters in Brutal Legend, including the likes of Ozzy Osbourne, Rob Halford, Lemmy Kilmister, and Lita Ford. Jack Black takes on the role of protagonist Eddie Riggs, and spouts off approximately 1600 lines of dialogue over the course of the game. Like many Tim Schafer gamers, the first rate writing is what really makes Brutal Legend stand out, with characters trade wonderfully overwrought, pseudo-medieval banter and aggressively rude one-liners, all laced with in-jokes and references to metal bands both classic and obscure. Whereas characters in most games repeat the same phrases with every attack, Jack Black unloads fresh material with every swing of his axe. The story cinematics that book-end the action had me laughing loud enough to be heard clearly above the ambient noise of EA's booth.
The gameplay in Brutal Legend follows the Zelda formula, combining relatively simple combat with exploration, environmental puzzle-solving and gigantic boss battles. We only had the chance to try out two of the weapons at Eddie's disposal, the great Separator axe and his trusty guitar Clementine. The axe does its job, separating the heads and limbs of enemies from their bodies, while Clementine provides magical fire-power in the form of lightning bolts and pyro explosions than send enemies skyward. If Eddie is fighting alongside an ally, the two can team up for a more damaging tag-team maneuver. Combining various attacks into combos is intuitive, effective, and fun. The controls are smooth, the camera is flawless, and the enemies generally erupt in satisfying fountains of blood. There's nothing here that will put the likes of Ninja Gaiden to shame, but the combat never felt repetitive or boring during our playtest.
Link may have been stuck riding a horse, but Eddie is a modern-day metal-head and as such, has access to something a little more aggressive. You'll unlock a hotrod early in the game, and it will serve as the main mode of transport across the massive game world for the rest of the game. The hot-rod factors into story missions as well, as we used it to race across a crumbling bridge, defeat a huge serpentine boss, and escort a tour bus filled with allies across the overworld, using machine-gun turrets and side-mounted flame-throwers to take out Harley-riding demonoid creatures. The hot-rod controls pretty smoothly in general, but the e-brake turns necessary to evade enemy attacks feels a little off.
What's Not
Gameplay-wise Brutal Legend is shaping up to be a solid title, but it's really the writing, humor and outlandish atmosphere that take it up that critical notch from 'good' to 'great.' As with other Tim Schafer titles, you probably don't have to be an expert or even a fan of the subject matter being skewered, but it certainly allows you to get more out of the jokes being tossed around. More critically, if you don't share Schafer's sense of humor then you're not likely to enjoy the comedy regardless of whether you're a metal fan or not. If you take the comedy out of the equation, you're left with a collection of very good gameplay elements – some fun combat, a large world to explore and some army building to mechanics - but you're missing that special ingredient that really makes the experience something special.
Outlook
Throw up the horns, for the time hath come to rock! Fun, hilarious and genuinely unique in tone and subject matter, Double Fine's latest is one of very few games on the E3 show floor that tempted me back for a second and third play-through. Brutal Legend is shaping up to be another fantastic adventure born out of Tim Schafer's delightfully warped imagination.
November 20, 2009
