by Dracomaster

Developer: Double Fine
Publishers: Electronic Arts
Release Date: October 13, 2009

Story:
The story starts off with a modern day “heavy metal band” preparing for their concert. This is when we see our hero, Eddie Riggs, the best roadie in the world. During the show, one of the band members nearly falls to his death, but Eddie risks his life to save him, but the stage ends up crushing him. Blood pours down onto his cursed belt buckle that brings forth a giant metal monster that transports him to an alternate history of a heavy metal and Nordic fantasy. When he awakens he finds himself being attacked by cloaked demons and so he takes a nearby axe and his guitar (Clementine), where he finds that playing his guitar brings up great powers. Eddie joins a small team of humans living under the rule of the demon emperor Doviculus and his general glam rocker LionWhyte. The rest of the story follows Eddie gathering allies to fight the demons to free humanity from the control of the demons. The story is very interesting and unique and they way it’s pulled off will make you want to keep playing and going through the missions to see how all it all ends.

Game play:
The game play is very simple and easy. “A” being your axe attack and “X” is for the guitar. You can press X and get a lighting attack that shocks one enemy at a time, or you can hold it and a geyser of fire will hit someone. You can purchase upgrades that give you combos, like A, X, X, X or A, X, A, and so on. You can also upgrade the Axe and Guitar themselves, which could increase the melee damage of the weapon or add a fire element to it, that will burn enemies after you hit them.

Some gameplay using the axe you get.

There is also a driving element in the game, the game is open world and driving is the best and quickest way to travel. Driving is good and fun, but it’s not great, you will find yourself having trouble turning and running into walls constantly. Just like your Axe and guitar, you can upgrade your car, by adding weapons, increased preformance, armor, extra nitro or even changing the color.

The other huge part of the game play, is the RTS elements (real time strategy), which is used to advance the story and defeat bosses. RTS seems to come out as the most important part in this game, it almost feels like playing the single player is really only meant to get you ready for multiplayer. The RTS boss fights are rock shows, where you have to get merchandise stands that go on top of fan geysers (which are used as currency, like gold). You start off with only a few units, but while you progress through the game, you get more people to join your army, like the roadies, bouncers, or vehicles, like the rock crusher. RTS on consoles are known for being pretty bad, but in this game, they made the RTS controls very simple and easy to use. You use the left trigger to perform solos, which will do multiple things to help you, whether it is creating a merchandise stand, bringing more allies to join you, or to summon you car. You use the D-pad to give commands to soldiers near you. Up-is to charge and attack, Left-have them follow you, Right- Indicates where your army needs to go, but without attacking, Down- stay and defend a point.
There is also a small rhythm game element, when doing solos that can perform certain actions, like rallying an army, or rising ancient relics from the ground and even calling upon your car (The Deuce). It’s a very quick and easy thing to do, all you do is press the buttons in the right sequence, like A, X, X, Y, A. Very simple and quick, but yet, fun to do.

Doing a solo during a rock show.

Graphics-
The graphics look great, no they are not realistic looking, but that’s the great thing about it. The art style of the game is to resemble the art styles of heavy metal and rock album covers. I myself have never actually seen any, but this kind of art style looks just so nice. Since the world is influenced by heavy metal and metal album covers, everything in the world has this unique look to it that resembles something you would find on an album cover. The character designs are incredible looking and very unique. The world looks beautiful, you may find yourself just wanting to drive around the world and admiring the look of everything.

Sound-
The sound is a HUGE part of this game, since the world is supposed to be an alternate history influenced by heavy metal. I’m not much a music person, so with most games, I usually have the sound muted while I listen to other stuff. But, in this game, I loved listening to the sound of the world around you and listening to all the songs you get to hear while playing the game. It’s defiantly made me want to start listening to heavy metal songs. When you’re roaming the world, you’ll get to listen to all the songs that you have unlocked and when in your car, you can pick what song you want to listen to. The voice acting is amazing as well, I’m a fan of Jack Black and he’s hilarious in this game, and so is everyone else in the game. Especially, the guest voices from other singers, the ones you’ll hear the most are Ozzy Osbourne (as the Guardian of Metal), Lemmy Kilmister (Kill Master), and Tim Curry (Doviculus). The voice acting alone is great, but the fantastic writing in the game is probably the best thing in the game. The lines are constantly funny and I’ve found myself laughing at loud multiple times. This is probably the funniest game I’ve ever played.

Extras-
Since this game is also an open world game, there is much to do, even after you beat it. There are over 100 collectibles that can be found by exploring the world. For example, you can learn the true history of the world, by finding Artifact of Legends that are scattered around the world. Some of the other collectibles scattered across the world include: Bound Serpents, Landmarks, Buried Metal, songs, lightning plug jumps and more. You can also unlock 107 songs from different bands as well as concept art for characters and locations in the game. The more you collectibles you find, the more Fire tributes you earn, which is used as currency to upgrade your car, skills, axe, and guitar, which is spent at the Motor Forge. There are several Motor Forges around the world and you can find them all to have quick access to upgrading your car and weapons.
Besides the many collectibles in the game, there are side missions you can do. Sadly there’s not much variety between the side missions, there are some racing missions you can do, but most side missions involve attack enemies or fending off attacking hordes. Though the variety is small, they are still fun and enjoyable.

Re-playability-
One thing that makes people decide on buying a game is re-playability, if the game has little, then it’s a rent, if it has a lot it’s a buy. Unfourtantly for Brutal Legend, it’s has little re-playability. Yes, it has multiplayer (I’ll get to that in a sec), but besides that you’ll go through the story once and find the collectibles if you want to and that’s it.

Multiplayer-
The multiplayer is the RTS element that you see in the single player game. You have the choice of three factions, IronHeade, Drowning Doom, and the Tainted Coil. Each fraction has its advantages and disadvantages, but the Tainted Coil seems to have an advantage over the other two, since it can spawn warriors anywhere on the map, unlike the other two that can only spawn warriors from their stage. The multi is lacking depth, with only 3 factions to play as, 6 maps to play on, and only 1 game mode, there’s not much you can do. There can be up to 4 people on each faction. It’s very easy to pick up and play for none RTS players, but that means that for veteran players, there isn’t much to it. Though it is fun, you won’t find yourself going back to it after a few matches.

The Tainted Coil faction you can use in multiplayer.

Final thoughts-
The game is incredibly fun. I went through the story mode in about 5 hours just by going from main mission to main mission, but for those 5 hours, I was having fun the entire time. There was not one moment I was frustrated or angry with the game. The main story might be short, but doing all the side missions and collecting everything will take a good amount of time. Forgiving some of the flaws it has, and the lack of multiplayer depth, the game is still a game that should be played, but for most people it may not be worth the $60 bucks, but for those who really enjoy heavy metal, and enjoy Tim Schafer games, it will be worth the $60 bucks (it was worth every dollar to me).

Thumps up-Rental