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Brutal Legend
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| List Price: | $59.95 |
| Price: | $39.99 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details |
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com
51 new or used available from $29.95
Average customer review:
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #285 in Video Games
- Brand: Electronic Arts
- Model: 19368
- Published on: 2009-09-30
- Released on: 2009-10-13
- ESRB Rating: Mature
- Platform: Xbox 360
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: .59" h x 5.39" w x 7.55" l, .20 pounds
Features
- Online-enabled multiplayer so players can conquer friends online via Xbox LIVE.
- Comedic action combat set in a rock n' roll fantasy world, staring the talents of Jack Black in the role of a demon fighting super roadie.
- A soundtrack made up of 108 of the most rocking tracks from 75 different bands representing every sub-genre of metal.
- A streaming, open world that gives players the freedom to walk, drive, or fly anywhere as they unleash the power of rock n' roll on enemies.
- In-game cameos from gods of Metal like Lemmy Kilmister, Rob Halford, Lita Ford, and many, many others.
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Product Description
Brütal Legend is an action-adventure that marries visceral action combat with open-world freedom. Set in a universe somewhere between Lord of the Rings and Spinal Tap, it’s a fresh take on the action/driving genre, which in this case is full of imitation cover bands, demons intent on enslaving humanity and Heavy metal tunes. Featuring the talents of comedian, actor and musician, Jack Black as super roadie Eddie Riggs, as well as cameos by some of the biggest names in metal music it's a wild ride in the belly of the beast that is not to be missed by gamers and Metalheads alike.
The vivid and wildly creative world of Brütal Legend is brought to life through a spate of chrome, leather, rocker babes, epic music, fire-breathing/stud-wearing beasts, mountains made of guitar amps, and more. Follow Eddie as he embarks on a tour of epic destruction with an axe, a guitar, and his minions as he commands the power of rock in epic band battles. It’s lighter-flicking awesomeness that will melt your face clean off. Action Combat Brütal Legend’s core gameplay is classic action slasher, but with a twist: ranged combat comes from your demon-slaying, electricity-creating guitar. Add that 1-2 punch to a guitar solo mechanic that can summon objects, buff your teammates, or cripple your opponents, and you have a deep, gratifying core gameplay combat loop that is fun for the hardcore and accessible for the casual. A Streaming Open World Brütal Legend gives you the freedom to walk, drive, or fly anywhere in a fully streaming open world whose art style is inspired by some of the most iconic and hilariously rad metal album covers ever created. Every vista in the beautiful universe of Brütal Legend looks like it was pulled from a Frank Frazetta painting. Packed with Cameos and Voice Talent Brütal Legend is full of cameos from gods of metal like Lemmy Kilmister, Rob Halford, Lita Ford, and many, many others. It has a MASSIVE metal soundtrack from every era of metal music: 1970’s classic metal to 1980’s hair metal to the scarier cousins of 1990’s metal. And of course, Jack Black pays the ultimate homage to metal as Eddie the Roadie, continuing the theme from the work of his band, Tenacious D and his previous films like School of Rock and High Fidelity. Multiplayer Mayhem 4v4 "skirmish" multiplayer marries action combat with a strategic unit-control mechanic. As the leader of one of the factions in the game, the player will direct his armies in a Battle of the Bands where the trophy is survival. Brütal Legend’s multiplayer is online-enabled, so you can conquer your friends online via Xbox LIVE (broadband connection required for online play). Soundtrack The soundtrack of Brütal Legend is truly massive. Made up of 108 of the most rocking tracks from 75 different bands representing every sub-genre of metal, it is something to experience in and of itself. The complete track list includes:
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Amazon.com
From the mind of Tim Schafer (Psychonauts, Grim Fandango) comes Brutal Legend, the ultimate heavy metal action game starring Jack Black (School of Rock, Tenacious D). You are heavy metal roadie Eddie Riggs, hurled back in time to the mythical Age of Metal when the world was formed and ruled by the power of Rock! Armed with a broadaxe, a guitar, and a big block V8 you set off on an epic quest to assemble an army of headbangers, hotrods, barbarians, demonic dominatrix and the undead. With the wings of a demon and the power of a Rock God, you must lead humanity in an epic war against its barbaric overlords, and carve your name forever into the Brutal Legend.
- Slay your friends and foes online. Then play guitar licks on their graves.
- The most ultimate heavy metal soundtrack ever assembled in a game.
Customer Reviews
I really wanted to like this game more
Let me start this review by saying I really wanted to like this game. Being a huge fan of previous Tim Schafer games and a long time metal aficionado I had high hopes. I even pre-ordered the game from Amazon which is rare for me. I give the preface since someone without the same expectations might enjoy it more.
The Good:
Story, Soundtrack, Voice Acting, Artwork, Humor, Metal References and Credits
All of the above are incredibly good. From the introduction through the credits the production values and choices the team made were excellent, within character, and true to intent. I liked the credits which is usually a pet peeve of mine. Rather than drag them out and force you to watch for 10+ minutes (and tempting you to quit out), they went along at a good clip. The soundtrack is well balanced with old and new, major (Ozzy, Scorpions, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest) and less well known but excellent (Ministry) artists, and styles from melodic to death growls (not a fan personally). The Legends and overall storyline are quite entertaining and well thought out.
The Bad:
Length, Flow, Gameplay, and Achievements
The game is very short. Unless you want to spend lots of time after the main story on either hunting through the environment for missed objects (without any map indication or "object finder") or want to play the pseudo-RTS online multi-player, you will be lucky to get more than 10 hours of gameplay out of this game. For a next gen price of $60, the entertainment/price ratio doesn't work out (and is one of the reasons for the 3 stars.) The flow of the game is somewhat disappointing as the major story points are somewhat disjoint and don't always flow smoothly together. The achievements frustrate me as >60% of them are from either the endless object search or the multi-player component. I don't have a problem with some tedium for attaining a full 1000 points, but I really feel a majority of the points should be achievable in playing the main game reasonably carefully. This is one of those games where the achievements feel set up to force the game to be artificially longer rather than to add to your enjoyment. Finally there is the gameplay itself. Another review (sorry I don't remember the reference) stated it best. In having the open-world/action/driving/RTS game models, the game is really a "Jack (Black) of all trade and master of none". None of the modes are bad but none of them are good. Taken together the whole isn't greater than the sum of the parts. The enjoyment in the game is from the story, the world, the soundtrack, the humor, the metal, and the artwork. The mechanics don't add to the game.
Bottom Line:
Worth a rent or buying a used copy, but with all the holiday games there is better value out there. I hope TS continues to make games though and the next one has the publicity/plish of Brutal Legend but is more like Psychonauts/Grim Fandago in fun.
A "Black Diamond" in the Rough this one
First off, this game pokes fun at current "metal" trends while attempting to tell a story worthy of the 70s metal bands that meshed mythology and modern culture. The game succeeds, in my opinion, in just about everything it sets out to do, and does it so well that it makes the endeavor of this mixed-genre game look natural and easy to accomplish.
You can't discuss this game without the tongue-in-cheek-yet-serious storyline. The quirky characters and the fact that this is all being done in over-the-top fashion makes it hard to take seriously, but that hint of humor is what lends the game's story its sense of urgency. If the game took itself seriously and didn't play these over-the-top characters for laughs, it would become tedious and overwrought. The fact that they copped to their own camp value is what keeps it from being pretentious.
The game itself is actually a realization of Action games, Exploration/Free Roam games, and Real-Time Strategy. Fans of one or two should have no problem with this game (though people who dislike RTS will find this game least agreeable as most major plot points revolve around RTS battles.) You drive around the landscape in your upgradeable car, doing open-world missions and races. If you upgrade your car for weapons, you can also shoot things instead of hopping out of the car to fight people (which, oddly enough, my axe kills things faster than lighting something on fire, shooting it with a chaingun, running it over, then backing up over it.) Some of the missions will see you fighting things solo, but this is rare. You will usually have minions helping you out (similar to Dynasty Warriors.)
Finally, the big thing is the RTS element. While it couches it as a "battle of the bands" kind of rockshow, it is a serious (if a little bare-bones) strategy battle. In true Rock-God fashion, you have to play some epic riffs and get your hands dirty leading your troops for the most part, and you can either fly around the battlefield or take your car (which is a bit of a disappointment, as stated above, for the damage it does compared to a few whacks with your axe.) to explore your options and set waypoints. Each unit can also be "teamed" with to create a different or enhanced effect and, later, you can upgrade your main base and your basic units as well.
For all the wonderful setting and awesome music (which, admittedly, should appeal to anyone who is considering this game,) all the quirky characters and cool cinemas and events and so-on and so-forth ... the game is depressingly short (figure 8-10hrs at most for the core story.) Like most free-roaming explorers, the game depends on your desire to "catch 'em all!" to keep you playing, either looking at all the cool setting or finding all the collectibles. Admittedly, I'm interested in the fascinating metal-style mythology of this epic world, so I'm hunting for that now.
The game's brevity would seem to be an unfortunate decision to include RTS multiplayer in the game. This has very little interest to me, and I would've much rather seen them incorporate the coding into additional story missions rather than saving it all for multiplayer (with no way to familiarize yourself with the other factions' units and abilities other than playing against a typical AI which substitutes higher resource and production rates for actual skill.) I would have loved to, instead of playing multiplayer RTS, had to play a mission or three as the goth faction or the demon faction, especially because it would've fleshed out these adversaries just a little bit more and made it a little more satisfying to beat them.
Other minor gripes include the often-used mechanic of "water is deadly," in that if you end up driving your car into the ocean or off a cliff, rather than just have a quick cinematic of your character crawling, annoyed, out of the surf, you go back to the last mission you accomplished after a brief death sequence. Another minor issue is that I found it hard to give intricate commands to my troops (though I suppose that kind of fits given my troops.) Also, re-used voice-clips during the missions and RTS tend to get a little old.
In all, this game is definitely a rental, but metalheads on a mission to relive the days of epic albums should probably pick this up ...
For fans of Heavy Metal there is no better!
To best describe this game, you have to imagine a time before the internet and when MTV and radio played no metal music at all. I would bring my allowance to a Camelot records shop every Friday and look at the covers of tapes in the metal section then buy the one looked the coolest. Ah metal in the eighties... takes me back to when coping a tape from a friend or a Metal Edge magazine was the only way to discover new bands.
This game is like taking a romp through my favorite metal covers come to life. A world of grossly distorted large engines and god like effigies all in the name of metal.
The game play itself is a miss mash of modes that mostly feels like Grand Theft Awesome. You drive around a large sandbox environment doing things like helping to ambush enemies, save friends in trouble, doing special jumps in you car, hacking up enemies with your axe etc... The main thing that separates this game is a real time strategy mode that is involved with all of the games major plot points. You become the on battlefield general for you army of headbangers. This means that you are hacking enemies and commanding troops at the same time. This is a little tough to get used to at first, but none of these parts kept me from progress for more than 2 to 3 tries on the hardest difficulty.
With a sound track of over 100 great songs and Ozzy, Lita Ford, Lemmy, and Rob Halford doing voice over, Brutal Legend is a unashamed tribute and celebration of all things metal.
If you like metal you'll love it.
