From the creative mind behind Monkey Island and Psychonauts comes an epic story about an ordinary guy who becomes an extraordinary hero. Brutal Legend revolves around Eddie Riggs, a roadie who suffers an accident on stage and is transported to an alternate world. This world reflects Eddie’s version of a “perfect” place, a world inspired by heavy metal album covers, where people seem to worship the gods that brought heavy metal music to the land. Eddie decides to use his roadie knowledge to help the oppressed people and eventually becomes the leader of the Ironheade army.
The gameplay in Brutal Legend is divided into hack-and-slash and RTS, with some optional races.
Eddie is armed with an axe and a guitar, espectively his close and ranged combat weapons. The guitar is also used for playing guitar solos (a little bit like playing Guitar Hero with the A, B, X and Y buttons) which serve a number of purposes: offensive and defensive abilities, free enslaved serpents, recruit more people for your army, melt faces or summon a zeppelin that will come crashing down in flames on your enemies.
The RTS portion of the game happens during Stage Battles, which usually take place when you encounter a “boss” in the game. Here you will need to manage your resources (fans) by building merchandise booths on them, so that you can produce units to throw at your enemies. Don’t let this resource and units talk scare you though, this isn’t nearly half as complex as Warcraft. Stage Battles are interesting during the single-player campaign, though they can become much more engaging and challenging in a multiplayer setting.
The soundtrack is unlocked as you play through the game. New songs are added to the main track list (which, by the way, is composed of over 100 tunes), with headbanging hits by Def Leppard, Tenacious D, Black Sabbath, Motorhead, Judas Priest, Dragonforce, Manowar, Scorpions and Ozzy Osbourne, to name a few. It’s by far my most favorite non-original soundtrack ever, but even the music composed specifically for the game is exceptional. Unfortunately, the soundtrack is only available for purchase as a download, through Amazon, eMusic and iTunes.
The characters and dialogs are just great. From Eddie’s constantly sarcastic remarks voiced by Jack Black, to special appearances by Ozzy Osbourne as The Keeper of Metal (your local upgrade merchant), Motorhead’s Lemmy as The Killmaster, Tom Curry as evil emperor Doviculous. But even “non-celebrity” characters have fantastic personalities and strong presence, and it’s easy to get involved to the point where the loss of some characters will come across as shocking.
The game world is full of metal references inspired by actual album covers and “traditional” heavy metal elements such as chains, scantily-clad women, demons, skulls, swords and flames, while the opposing faction is based on glam metal, with their big hair and flamboyant looks.
I also especially enjoyed the narration and presentation of the background story. As the story advances, you are presented with these comic-style sequences that explain the past events that lead to the present condition of the world, narrated in a way that reminds me of mythology and legends books I used to have a long time ago.
I’m not saying Brutal Legend is perfect. In fact, it does get a bit repetitive with all the optional missions, but if it weren’t for them, the game would become fairly short. But other little things such as the lack of a better guiding and map system (I’m sorry, but The Deuce’s turning signals were just downright confusing, and the map definitely lacks in landmarks) and checkpoints that force you to backtrack quite a bit if things don’t quite go as planned take away from the game’s enjoyment.
If metal isn’t up your alley, then you probably won’t even bother picking up this game. But Brutal Legend is an entertaining and humorous gameplay experience (even if not overly innovative or original) with fantastic presentation, engaging story and great characters, which happens to also be an excellent tribute to heavy metal music. Who knew that headbanging would go so well with ass-kicking in a videogame…