Brutal Legend

It's been a while since I've been able to write a negative review, I guess I've been buying too many good games. But then, Brutal Legend came into my life. Why, oh why.

Irritatingly, this is one of the most different games to come out this year. Tim Schafer, the writer of the game, is known for awesome games like Monkey Island 2 and Psychonauts, and his good writing ability. Which makes it more ironic that this game is badly written in both structure and storyline. It is set in... wait where is it again? Supposedly in the 'land of metal', but then it also sometimes suggests that the protagonist Eddie Riggs has time-travelled to some other time, he is destined to free them from the oppressors of metal posers and glam rockers. This would be great as it sounds out-there, funny and something that most metalheads could relate to, but it tends to shift from jokey to taking itself seriously so often that you wonder if the developers genuinely thought this was going on. You meet characters of the resistance, build an army with them and eventually take back the land in a story of love, honour and betrayal in the name of metal and 'real music'. Unfortunately this is plagued by terrible characterisation, particularly on the part of the agonizingly cringey Jack Black taking the role of Eddie Riggs shouting 'metal' things like 'ROCK ON' which sound plain embarrassing on the part of metal, and the uneventful cutscenes which always seem to be plentiful in awkward silences and generally not a lot happening. In fact, there are a lot of famous people doing their part in voice acting for Brutal Legend: Tim Curry does a good job being the ultimate evil boss, but metal legends such as Lemmy from Motorhead and Rob Halford from Judas Priest play big parts but fail to make any impression; I reckon they should have been themselves more in their roles instead of entirely their characters. 

The art style of the game is a high point, the cartoony-ness of the land is great, with random creatures of metal wandering around and giant mountains of amplifiers standing tall in a humorously exaggerated way. However the area to explore is actually quite small, and in terms of things to explore for the game lacks too; the side missions are about as bad as Just Cause's.

Gameplay also doesn't elevate above endless whacking with the X button and Y to guitar solo (which, actually doesn't make any noise), or a combo of the two. You can purchase more moves and combos and general upgrades at the shop - the shopkeeper is Ozzy Osbourne, and he actually did a good job in voice acting - but not only are these particularly good but they don't tend to help against the absolutely huge amount of enemies in the game, most of which are pretty overpowered. While the range of unique environments you encounter in the map is impressive, especially considering the small size of the realm, it will still revert to running along certain roads and whacking stuff. Some sections incorporate elements of Real Time Strategy; you are given the temporary ability to fly to give you the birds-eye point of view, and you can spawn friendlies using the currency of dead metal fans' souls  with a number of different classes. Each class has strengths and weaknesses but, once again, these sections are often too hard and they all seem to die, leading you to always resort to the tactic of 'just make as many as you can and rush'. 

The game DOES have a multiplayer mode, but I didn't have the time or patience to play it. While aesthetically a good game with nice animations, character models and environments, it fails in just about every other area it attempts to excel in, humour, strategy and, most of all, metalness. Jack Black couldn't have been a worse choice in lead voice actor (I would say Bruce Dickinson should have done it, but then I wouldn't want him in such a bad game) and it seems that Tim Schafer not only has lost his ability to write great games but also knows nothing about metal. 3/10.