Friday, November 6, 2009

Game Review: Brutal Legend

*NOTE TO READER: Started this a few weeks ago and just posting it now. Sorry, I'm way behind*

This game was definitely near the top of my most wanted for 2009. I was a big fan of Psychonauts and since Brutal Legend is from the same creative mind of Tim Schafer, I was sold from day one. Add in Jack Black and the heavy metal theme and I was drooling for months waiting for this one.

I finished this game last week and to be honest, I don't think it quite lived up to the hype. The heavy metal theme sure did though and the voice acting is top notch. This game has one of the best soundtracks ever. I'm a huge metal fan and the soundtrack for this one was nothing short of AWESOME!! From Ozzy to Judas Priest to Slayer to Lamb of God, it has everything you could want. Jack Black is perfect in his role as Eddie Riggs, the roadie. We all know how Black feels about metal given his work in Tenacious D and this game is almost like it was made for Tenacious D.

I also thought the writing and the storyline, while not over the top awesome, were really enjoyable as well. There was lots of cool humour and of course metal references in this game. The game also has some great cameos in it as well from Ozzy to Lemmy to Rob Halford to even Kyle Gass.

The game is more or less played out in an open world where you can either do missions to progress the main story or you can do side missions such as races, hunting of creatures, helping someone with their mortar fire or defend a position. There are also side objectives such as finding objects throughout the world.

The gameplay though was nothing like what I expected. I thought it might be a God of War hack-n-slash style game, but it ended up being more of an RTS. Most of the missions for the main storyline are played out in this fashion. Your base is a concert stage and your resources for building new troops are "fans" that you accumulate by taking control of towers that supply them to you by playing one of the special solos you have in the game that give you special powers. Much like Warcraft and Command and Conquer, you build your troops once you have acquired enough fans. The controls for these battles are pretty basic and don't take too long to master. The battles themselves though do get quite difficult as the game progresses. I recall a few of them taking me quite some time to finish.

Overall, I enjoyed the game but glad I only rented it. The main storyline doesn't take that long to finish, depending on how well you progress through the battles. If you can rent it or see it on the cheap, I definitely say pick it up but don't pay full price for it.

Rating: 7/10