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. 
Classic action slasher gameplay with a comic twist.
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Unleashable Heavy metal powers.
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Over-the-top vehicular combat.
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8-player multiplayer support.
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Challenging bosses & baddies.
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A driving 108-tune Metal soundtrack.
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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 PlayStation Network (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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 Brütal Legend: Not Perfect, But Beautifully Crafted & Fun |
| Review Date: November 3, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Nick Wagner, Maryland |
"Oh man...I hope I haven't been slaying hot chicks this whole time!"
Damn you Tim Schafer. You've been gifted with the ability to turn the most outlandishly wacky ideas (and not to mention potentially unmarketable) into some of the most funny and original games ever created. This makes you a godsend since most games these days are neither original nor funny (even when they try their hardest - I'm looking at you Halo and Grand Theft Auto clones). While I speak from a lesser-exposed point of view (I haven't yet had the pleasure of playing The Secret Of Monkey Island or Grim Fandango), I have played Full Throttle, Day of the Tentacle, and Psychonauts and I know a special game when I see it. While Full Throttle and Day of the Tentacle were fun, Psychonauts is Schafer's first grand work, and one of the best games of the sixth generation. Psychonauts was full of all kinds of wacky characters, über-creative levels, subtle dark humor, innovative gameplay mechanics, responsive controls, and mature themes under all those bright colors (the Memory Reels are quite tragic and sad, mirroring the losses and hardships we've all faced). I consider Psychonauts to be one of the finest games ever made, and I guarantee that no matter what type of gamer you are, there's something for you in Psychonauts. And y'know what? This was Schafer's first game to be released on a console. Talk about starting with a bang! But with the video game market shunning innovation and constantly reproducing the same drivel over and over (I can't wait for another futuristic first person shooter that blatantly rips off Halo or Madden: The Same Game As Last Year), would Schafer be able to continue his tradition of creating something original in a sea of unoriginality?
Thankfully yes! Enter Brütal Legend, a game about heavy metal, made by a metalhead, for metalheads. While this will most likely turn off some people, it is insanely fun for me and will be for anyone who gets the slightest enjoyment out of listening to heavy metal. Pretty much everything about the game is great, save for a few minor things. The level design, characters, controls, gameplay, and especially, the soundtrack are all top-notch.
On the surface, the game is a basic hack-n-slash with free roam that turns onto a real time strategy (RTS) game at certain points. The hack-n-slash part is fun; you have an upgradeable battle axe and guitar that serve as your weapons, as well as a customizable hot rod, dubbed "The Deuce", armed with weapons and nitro. You can also perform solos with the guitar, similar to playing the the ocarina in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. They range from summoning The Deuce, playing a literally face-melting solo against enemies, and my personal favorite, calling in an air strike from a giant Zeppelin. While I don't care for RTS's, with the exception of Command & Conquer, it works here and is integrated nicely in the heavy metal universe. Instead of using gold or harvesting some other resource for funds to buy and build units, your "currency" is fans. You construct "merch booths" that spawn fans, which allows you to create new units for your army. The more merch booths you construct, the more fans you're allowed. Your home base is a stage which you must protect. You have all the usual units, but with a wonderful heavy metal spin: infantry are headbangers, ranged weapons are groupies with guns, tanks are skull covered ballistas, stealth guys are roadies carrying speakers, etc. The imagination and design of these things is amazing and heartfelt, showing Schafer and the design team really have a love for the source material. That being said, the RTS element is my least favorite part of the game. While the victory is indeed "brütal" when you win, the controls are a bit lacking in this regard. Issuing attack/defend commands can be a pain, and controlling an individual unit is nearly impossible. The cool part is that you can jump right into the battle and start dealing out death personally along side your troops.
The strategy element isn't really there, but that's OK for me. My "strategy" was to spawn as many units as possible, while upgrading my stage to produce more powerful units, and go gung-ho and destroy everything. This worked well until I realized you could spawn The Deuce and use it IN battle. This made things ridiculously fun and much easier since I upgraded it to maximum kickass-ness with missile launchers, flame jets, and one heck of a battering ram. I was shooting the bad guys, setting them on fire and running them over while simultaneously spawning more and more troops to help me kick butt.
The other missions are standard (and a tad repetitive) as far as most games go: recruit these people for your army, escort your caravan to the next area, stage battle, repeat. This isn't really a complaint because the repeated missions are always done in new and beautifully designed areas, so it still manages to stay somewhat fresh. There are side missions to earn you "fire tributes", which serve as the game's currency and let you upgrade your inventory. The game also has tons of things to unlock, collect and discover. I get an immense satisfaction from collecting stuff, so this made the game even more fun for me. Brütal Legend has upgrades, concept art, new solos, and new songs you can unlock by finding certain things. You can also free "bound serpents" to give you health and armor upgrades and find legends that tell the history of the metal land. And the game looks absolutely stunning. The entire game world is designed in the style of heavy metal album covers, conveying epicness in every sense of the word. Google Frank Frazetta and Boris Vallejo to get a sense of the game's style.
The soundtrack is the best part of the game. A good deal of my time was just spent driving around listening to The Deuce's radio, dubbed "The Mouth Of Metal". All different genres of metal are present here in the game's 108 songs, including the originators of heavy metal Black Sabbath, the thrash metal of Motörhead and Megadeth, the 80's hair/glam metal of Mötley Crüe, the modern power metal of DragonForce, and tons of tracks by lesser known but utterly awesome artists (Brocas Helm, Omen, Riot, etc.) that perfectly compliment the game. I think this is why I found the game to be so damn good compared to other reviewers because I truly love music, especially heavy metal, and because of this I was able to have more fun with the game than the average "radio listener". The original score by Tim Schafer's long time collaborator Peter McConnell is also superbly done.
And mark my words: Brütal Legend will suffer "Psychonauts Syndrome", receiving a decent critical reception but not becoming highly regarded until later.
So the bottom line? Brütal Legend rocks! While it's not without its flaws, it is lovingly crafted by true fans of metal and will be much more enjoyable to those that like metal. It may turn off the casual, but I say definitely check this one out.
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Freakin' Awesome!
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| Review Date: November 4, 2009 |
| Reviewer: B. Frantz, Earth |
| I dont know how else to put it, I absolutely love this game. I havent had this much fun playing a game since Call of Duty 4. And being a fan of metal music definately adds to the experience. This game also reminds me of a lot of other games. I see elements of Soul Reaver, God of War, GTA, and Diablo, which all are fantastic in their own way. The voice acting is great, the graphics are beautiful in a morbid way, the story is wonderful and even the supporting characters are awesome. There also seems to be alot to find with secondary missions and hidden items, a plus for me because it adds replay value! The only small complaint I have, like many others is the games length. I hope they add more levels via DLC, but if not I am still satisfied with it. |
Gets better the more you play
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| Review Date: February 18, 2010 |
| Reviewer: Frederick R. Hickey, Reading, PA |
I am in love with this game now. I bought it around Christmas time and finished it in normal difficulty mode pretty quickly without really understanding what I was doing. After taking a few weeks off, I had a hunch I was missing something so I restarted in brutal mode. This forced me to learn how to really play and I can't believe how much stuff I missed the first time around. I'm learning knew things every day and I'm totally addicted. Once I finish in brutal mode, I'm going to start the online multiplayer play. I've heard that's good but I wanted to make sure I really know how to play first. I'm thinking that I will be playing this game for a long time and although I've played both Drakes fortune one and two, I've already spent more enjoyable time with this game than both Drake's Fortune games combined.
My main point is that this game seems to get better all the time. I wasn't that impressed at first because there is a lot to learn making the game seem somewhat confusing and random, but now it is all making sense and it is super fun to play. I can't imagine there being a better game available on the market right now. |
Brutal Fun
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| Review Date: October 21, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Erik C. Simmons, USA |
This game is fan-freakin-tastic I've been playing video games sense the Atari 2600, I'm in my late 30s and don't have much time to spend playing video games any more, but this game is worth sacrificing precious time for.
First off the sound track is fantastic "if you're into 80's heavy metal" and the voice acting is spot on, so many cameos it's unbelievable. Jack Black nails it.
Secondly the graphics are amazing, this world based on heavy metal album covers it's fantastic so much eye-candy it's unreal. You just want to drive around so you don't miss anything, every corner you come around it's like "hay look at that!" (PS3 people take the time to set up your system and TV to take full advantage of HD and don't skimp on the cables on my system I see none of the graininess or glitches that have been mentioned, high-end systems setup wrong will look like crap but has nothing to do with the game)
Third the game play is great, smooth combat I love how they mixed the melee with the guitar magic mid range attacks fracking original. And the solo system is smooth and not cumbersome. Three main game formats here solo combat, driving, and real time strategy. All done well, melee is smooth, driving is a bit tricky in this landscape but well worth mastering because the Duce rocks, real time strategy here is a fairly simple system some people will want more control but were talking band members, bouncers, and head-bangers here not well trained military units it works and keeps with the spirit of the game.
As for the length sure if you go from main mission to main mission one after the other, and power game it, this game is short with the dialog and storyline the length fits. No this game is not epic sized like Oblivion but you can complete Oblivion in less than 10 hours if you simply power game it.
This game will hold your attention and keep it. It's one of the most original games I've seen in the past 10 years.
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Brutally awesome ode to metal!
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| Review Date: October 26, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Chris J. Wheatley, USA |
First of all the game is a must buy for any serious metalhead out there. The game is set in a beautifully rendered heavy metal fantasy universe. The art style is a hybrid of the Heavy Metal animated movie and some of Tim Schafer's past games. It is is full of georgous landscapes, striking vistas, and animations that are second to none. The vocal characterizations are all great with Jack Black playing essentially the same guy he portrays in most of his movies and with his band Tenacious D except that he has muscles and superpowers. It also contains loads of references to said musical genre that anyone framiliar with the music will appreciate. There are well over a hundred heavy metal tracks used for the game's extensive soundtrack. That alone was worth the price of admission for me.
Many have criticized the lack of focus in the gameplay itself. The game is essentially an eclectic mix of action, sandbox, and real time strategy. You lead an all metal army against a demonic horde of glam rockers. While the RTS portions can be somewhat tricky to learn I didn't find anything about the game especially hard to master at all. I think that it really does keep things more interesting by mixing up the playing styles. There are also many other various tasks to complete throughout the land though granted there is some repetition.
If you dig this kind of music it is well worth picking up this game and even if you're not into metal per se you will still appreciate the fantastic art direction and beautiful presentation of it all. That along with the varied gameplay that never really seems to get old makes it a winner. At 8-10 hours it's a bit shorter than I would have liked but that is a relatively minor complaint that only accentuates how good the game is. It leaves you hungry for more.
Tim Schafer's love letter to metal is one helluva fun game to play! Get this now and rock on my friends!
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Deecaaaaatioooooooooooooooooooooon!!!!!
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| Review Date: October 26, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Brian Buchan, |
| This game was awesome, witty, and rolled great with the parallelling of Metal and Waging war. I liked the Action RTS gameplay too! |
awesome rock game
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| Review Date: November 4, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Rose Disisto, hopewell juntion n.y. |
| This game is kick ass if u like rock games. It has pretty good graghics too. |
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