[Review] Brütal Legend

Finally a review! Sheesh.

How is it possible for a game created by someone whose last two projects were considered massive commercial flops to be one of the most anticipated this year? When you're Tim Schaefer, creator of some of the finest videogames ever, you not only get that, you also get Jack Black to star in your game. That's right, Tim Schaefer is that badass.

Brütal Legend[*1] is this latest project by Mr. Schaefer and his company, Double Fine Productions, and was initially advertised as an action adventure in the same vain as Devil May Cry or God of War set in a world based on Heavy Metal culture. Expectations were high, as people were expecting a quality action game that could finally give Double Fine the commercial success they deserve.

What we got instead is an open-world (read: sandbox) game, with Legend of Zelda-like exploration elements and battles inspired by the aforementioned action games and the RTS genre.

Wait, what? RTS battles? Where did that come from? Nowhere in the initial information available for this game was such a thing mentioned, so it got most people by surprise. It's not surprising, then, that this was the aspect of the game that was most heavily criticized.

The game itself starts of kind of slow[*2], and you might find it difficult to connect to the game's world. And before you can get used to the flow of things, you're dropped in your first RTS battle[*3], without any warning or real clue what to do. If you ever played a complicated Battleground like say the old Alterac Valley in World of Warcraft, remember how lost you felt at first, blindly moving to and fro, and before you knew it, you had won without realising how or why? That's how you'll feel in your first stage battle in Brütal Legend.

The thing is, you're given a myriad of helpful hints on how to play these battles in the loading screens throughout the game, but we rarely read those, don't we? To make matters worse, there are no in-game tutorials or helpful guides to guide you through, so the average person might feel completely lost[*4]. Still, once you figure out what to do, you realize these battles are quite simpler from any regular RTS game and not really all that hard. Plus, as an added bonus, they are actually fun!

As for the rest of the game? Read on, ye faithful one[*5].

Things Brütal Legend does right:

- From a conceptual/design point of view, the game is gorgeous. You can stop anywhere on the map and you'll have a different heavy metal album cover. Facial animation is also fantastic, and very expressive.

- You'd be hard-pressed to find a better soundtrack in any of this year's releases. While its focus is obviously on the narrow side, the songs selected are among the very best in the genre and should appeal to people that aren't fans of the genre.[*6]

- The quality of writing is simply top-notch. While the story itself is exactly what you'd expect it to be (with a twist that'll be really obvious to anyone who's ever read Hamlet), it's still charming enough and the history of the Brutal Land is beautifully told through a series of mythological "legends" that you unlock during the game.

But it's the dialogs and characters that make Brütal Legend truly shine. You'll laugh your behinds off quite a few times throughout your playthrough, and don't be surprised if you find yourself captivated by some of the characters.

- Voice acting is very professionally done. with an all-star cast of heavy metal personae. Simply hearing Ozzy say "Go fucking crazy!" or pretty much anything coming out of Lemmy's mouth is as badass as you get.

- The game world really feels like a place that could actually exist. The playable areas are meticulously designed and the world itself is always busy, with the local fauna attacking anything on site, including one another, enemy soldiers waiting to ambush you and your own troops simply "marching around, kicking ass". In other words, the Brutal Land feels like a place where life goes on even when you're not there yourself.

- Gentle nudges/references to Schaefer's previous games, as well as themes from said games, can be found throughout BL. Biker gangs, labor unions, moody off-camera monologues and eerie, disturbing poems are here.

Things about Brütal Legend that aren't that hot:

- The gameplay, while solid, is nothing special and has its fair share of faults. Aside from the whole stage battles issue mentioned before hand, there are some clipping issues that plague the overworld, the targeting system is a bit messy and controlling individual units during a stage battle is almost a nightmare. Thankfully, you very rarely have to do the latter.

Still, Brütal Legend is no stranger to the trend established after Full Throttle in Schaefer games, where the gameplay is as solid as it should be, but never extraordinary.

- While gorgeous from a design point of view, the graphics do suffer from a low polygon count, especially when compared to other recent releases such as Uncharted II.

- The game is short, no way around it. If you only stick to the main quest, you'll probably be watching the end credits after about five or six hours. If you decide to explore the world but not go crazy with unearthing every little thing, you'll probably get to play for four, perhaps five hours more. For a game of this scope, ten more hours wouldn't have hurt.

- As far as the multiplayer is concerned, I'm not entirely sold on the concept. Stage battles are fun, but not special enough to base an entire game mode on them.

Things I just don't get:

Why isn't there any way to view cutscenes and/or legends in the game? Sure, that's why god gave us YouTube, but in his infinite wisdom he also made us too lazy to do two things at the same time.

After all is said and done, Brütal Legend is a game crafted with care, and the genius of the man behind it shines at all the right moments. Its few letdowns are mostly due to budgetary issues rather than design choices, and it's hard to criticize it too harshly for that.

The Final Verdict is:
The Genuine Article

TL;DR version:

There's no denying it, Brütal Legend is a metalhead's wet dream. I'm not going to say something lame and cliche like "if you like metal you HAVE to buy this!" but there are some jokes and general intricacies that you'll only enjoy if you are, or have been, a fan of the genre. Still, it's accessible to non-fans as well, and you never know, it might even make you want to check out for yourself what the fuss with metal music is[*7].

*1 The umlaut is presumably added to show people how serious they are with this game.
*2 In fact, during my first two hours of play I was about to proclaim it "the worst Schaefer game ever."
*3 Called "Stage Battles" in the game
* There's a slightly off-topic point to be made here, I believe. Are we getting so used to games guiding us through these days? I remember hating this hand-holding in Bioshock but by the time I played Fable 2 and now in BL, I practically demanded it from the game. Isn't figuring out a game on your own fun in its own right?
*5 The British accents in Dragon Age are so gonna mess up the way I speak, I just know it
*6 Rez didn't appeal to ravers only, after all
*7 Ask me for recommendations