Double Fine Productions
EA Games
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Games such as Guitar Hero and Rock Band have proven that combining gaming and music is a good thing. Every gamer seems to have at least one music game in their collection and can regularly be seen signing and playing along to the greatest rock hits ever recorded. Brutal Legend takes that winning formula and does something completely different with it. Gamers take on the role of Eddie (voiced by Jack Black) a roadie who is resurrected and finds himself in a dark and demonic world. Armed with a guitar and an axe, Eddie must figure out what is going on and keep himself alive.
Brutal Legend is essentially a button-crunching game with lots of humour, lots of gore and lots of bad language. During the initial game sequences you can choose to keep the gore or turn it off and bleep out the swearing if you think you’ll get offended. This highlights a game that is trying to please every potential audience. Opening with a video scene featuring Jack Black, the game throws you into the middle of the action as you get to grips with the easy control system.
Packed with humour and great one-liners, Brutal Legend is hard to dislike. Everything from the cartoon-like graphics through to the impressive cut-scenes is great fun. Eddie is a fantastic character and developer Tim Schafer may have just hit gold with this creation. The missions are suitably challenging and often contain lots of baddies to dispose of. This can be done using an axe or by playing some killer guitar riffs. Combining the two weapons brings scenery crashing down and throws enemies off their feet. As you explore the levels you come across relics that teach you to play specific guitar riffs. These usually summon something or help you progress in the mission and are a nice touch to the overall gameplay. We also liked the fact that the game switches between racing game to action game frequently. This gives a sense of variety and makes the game even more enjoyable.
Early on in Brutal Legend you get a companion, Ophelia, to help you fight your way through the levels. Unlike the companions in many games Ophelia doesn’t get in your way or cause you to get killed through sheer stupidity. Instead she’s actually really helpful and adds to rather than detracts from the game.
We only have a couple of complaints about the game. Firstly the inability to jump is very frustrating. It makes it incredibly difficult to get out of the way of large numbers of enemies. Secondly every so often in the cut-scenes the graphics pixelate; this is particularly noticeable when the scenes fade out. These are minor points but they could have further enhanced the game.
Brutal Legend is one of the quirkiest, most original games we’ve played all year. The casting of Jack Black is pure genius and he brings Eddie to life fantastically. If you like your games with humour, gore and lots of action then Brutal Legend is definitely the game for you.
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