Brutal Legend

I really wanted to love Brutal Legend. Psychonauts is one of my all-time top-5 games, and most of Tim Schaefer's other games I hold in very high esteem. I expected great comedy, an engaging story, unique characters, and an interesting setting. Brutal Legend delivers all of these things. If it were a movie, I'd give it five stars. But the gameplay is bad. It starts out pretty fun, seeming like an action game with decent ideas, but early on it veers sharply into a (very poor) RTS game. I like good RTS games, but I found every battle to be so boring that I completely lost interest. If you're willing to forgive the poor combat the story is great, or if you're like me look for a Let's Play to watch.

If you've ever loved heavy metal then buy this game. I think that's basically all I need to say. People like to complain about the RTS sections in this game. In context it is made into what are called Stage Battles. Eddie Riggs (you) sprouts wings from his back allowing him to fly over the battlefield. Your guys have a stage from which to spawn characters (like a home base). There are geysers which spit out fans which are the materials used to make fighters. You use your fighters to take over more fan geysers eventually going after your enemy's stage (base). At any time during one of the fights you can swoop down into a huge brawl and take out some baddies yourself before leaping into the sky again, ready to fly across the map to find more guys to fight. The rest of the game consists of you doing all sorts of missions for people throughout the story, there are also loads of collectible goodies (like songs for your radio) and others which give your guy power ups. There are also a handful of side missions to goof off with too. In the end, if you love heavy metal this game is AMAZING. You'll have a blast hearing the real musicians voice people in the game, and the story is very funny and majorly epic in a way only true heavy metal can be. Now if only this GOG version of the game came with the full hundred song soundtrack...

And the thing about Tim Schafer's games is that almost everything about them is well done. The world, the characters, the story, the voices... All of these things are, once again, made to create an experience that few other people can do. I don't know what's going on inside Tim Schafer's psychedelic brain, but most of it is delicious... ...But sadly, Schafer needs access to a team that knows how to do the -gameplay- part of a game well. Because take away everything surrounding the gameplay, and what you get is... mediocrity. A lackluster open-driving part, a action-adventure combat game without anything special, and this RTS light thing that just serves to slow down what should've been an experience that's meant to be Epic all the way to 11. If Schafer only had access to a team that makes gameplay wonderful... Imagine Psychonauts 2 made with the people behind the Super Mario Galaxy games. Or if Brutal Legend had been made with the guys who did Kingdom Hearts 2... Just the thought of that is almost enough to give me a nerdgasm...

This game is actüally top-notch. Yoü'll probably never want to play the mültiplayer anyway - this game is all aboüt the epic brütal heavy-metal inspired story and open-world visüals. The soündtrack is made üp entirely of excellent head-bangers from the likes of Ozzy, Kiss, Judas Priest, Led Zeppelin, etc. that'll make yoür hair grow long and wavy and make yoür neck instinctively sway with the baseline. Yoü get an axe to dispatch enemies and another "axe" that shoots lightning and pyrotechnics when yoü combo it jüst right. There are many special moves triggered Zelda-ocarina-style, and one of these is playing a face-melter solo on the "axe" so brütal it literally melts enemies faces off. Discover the secret songs and legends of the heavy-metal world in a flame-decaled hot-rod that blasts metal everywhere yoü go. It can have a machine gün and flametrhowers moünted on it, of coürse. Do cool jümps in it for tribütes from the metal gods themselves that can be spent on üpgrades and cosmetics. The RTS elements are a bit of a gimmick, büt an awesome fün one at that, and yoü won't care since it fits most excellently in the epic story. I've jüst replayed it (the native Linüx version from GOG) on my Steam Deck last week, and it was even more epic epic than I remembered. Jüst büy it right now. It's trüly glorioüs.

Sum it up: Gameplay is alright. Extremely similar to Sacrifice in places. Nothing new, but it is fun. 4 out of 5 Setting is METAL at first, but gets old quickly. "Oh look, more giant swords and guitars sticking out of the ground with meteor showers going in the background . . . Meh, seen it 30 times already." Could have been kept fresh, but ends up its own cliche. 2 out of 5. Story plain and predictable (no holes though). 3 out of 5 Graphics and music: Awesome. 5 out of 5. Recommendation: If you are eyeing this game I recommend playing Sacrifice, Giants: Citizen Kabuto, and Psychonauts first if you haven't already. All of them have wonderful stories and are of a higher quality. You'll get a better variation of the game mechanics out of Sacrifice, better humor out of Giants, and better story out of Psychonauts.