Brütal Legend Review

Absurd Metal Mayhem from Start to Finish.

Brutal Legend, the latest offering from Double Fine and Tim Schafer, is the story of world-class roadie and champion metal head Eddie Riggs. The game opens with Riggs (voiced by Jack Black) fixing a guitar backstage and lamenting the death of real music. Fast forward five minutes and Riggs, lying on the stage in a pool of his own blood, looks as though he’s about to share the same fate as the style of music he so dearly loves. Fortunately for him, the metal god OrmagÖden whisks Riggs away to the world of Brutal Legend; a land built of metal, music and madness. Riggs must free the enslaved inhabitants of this mysterious realm using the very thing he loves most: heavy metal.

It’s clear from the very beginning that Double Fine has created something special with Brutal Legend. Whether it’s the introductory scene (Jack Black leading you to the Brutal Legend vinyl), the title screen (players access functions by flipping through a record cover) or the hilarious comedy of the first 20 minutes of gameplay, the obvious passion for the source material and loving attention to detail are evident at every turn. Words like unique, interesting and weird don’t even begin to describe the warped reality of the Brutal Legend experience, but in the end there’s only one word required to sum up this game: awesome.

Players gain control of Riggs when he arrives in the Brutal Legend Universe. Armed with an axe and guitar (or two axes for all you guitarists out there) Riggs must carve his way through a legion of undead priests to escape into the land proper. Whilst the axe-work is standard hack and slash fare, the guitar, Clementine, emits lightening and pyro that has a devastating effect on nearby enemies. Clementine also fulfils another critical purpose in the game by allowing Riggs to shred a solo to perform a number of critical actions, including rallying soldiers, summoning his vehicle or raising a relic. To perform a solo, players must execute a perfectly timed button combo in a style similar to that found in the Guitar Hero franchise. The two weapons are Rigg’s mainstay when it comes to combat (there are no other melee weapons in the game) so thankfully both can be upgraded.

Hack and slash isn’t the limit of the combat on offer though. Stage combat also features heavily in the game, which broadens the combat mechanic to include real time strategy (RTS) battles. During these battles, players must put on a show (battle), defend their fortress (stage) and harness an energy source (fans, which are harnessed by building a merch booth) to successfully defeat their enemy. Once the stage has been set and a merch booth has been erected on a fan geyser (fans emerge from geysers in an endless stream) the player can start to build units, ranging from melee combatants and healers to long range infantry, attack vehicles and brutal monstrosities capable of dealing massive damage. Riggs directs these units using a simple control interface and can even monitor the battle by sprouting wings and flying over the battlefield (somehow it all makes sense in-game). The battles are fast, frantic, and haphazard when compared to the combat of most RTS titles. In fact, the combat in Brutal Legend is so different from the combat mechanic of any other title that it achieves something quite rare in the video game world: uniqueness.

The same can be said about Brutal Legend’s sandbox setting. After slaying countless waves of undead priests and ripping a guitar solo to summon the Deuce (a gleaming flame decaled hot rod) players are able to begin exploring the world. Players navigate the terrain using the Deuce, which can be summoned at any time, or by hijacking one of the local animals. To enslave an animal, Riggs must first zap the animal with lightening before he instructs the specific beast to “hold still while I mount you.”