Brutal Legend - Overrated

[Anarchy In Detroit]

Be warned I played up until the mission where you have to get the Roadies to the Screaming Wall. I did not complete this game, I just couldn't bring myself to play anymore. Sorry but there is a point where a game is wasting my time.

I have to admit that I'm a huge metalhead. From old hardrock like AC/DC and Motorhead, to Iron Maiden and Metallica, to Lamb of God, Napalm Death, and Ministry I like it all. To have a game that was supposedly made for us, with Lemmy and Ozzy in it sounded like a great idea. I played the demo and was excited for this game. More than anything it seemed funny.

I was wrong.

The first level, in the demo, is funny and is pretty good. After that quic bit this game devolves rapidly. You are put in the weakest open world I've ever seen. WOW! A HEAVY METAL OPEN WORLD WHERE YOU... drive a car and hit animals. I do that already damnit, I live in Michigan. At any given time there are more deer than people in my state.

The combat generally consists of hitting A to use your axe, electrocuting people with your guitar, and using the facemelter solo (aka spell). There are other moves sure, but they are not the facemelter and therefore suck.

A lot of time will be spent going around the rather boring open world doing side missions. They are all repetitive and when you want to begin to disregard them you realize you cannot buy upgrades without the money from them.

There were a lot of stupid "little" things that will routinely bug the shit out of you. There is no mini map, so when you're driving you have to hit select all the time and bring up a map. The waypoints you set up on the map appear in the game world as light or smoke depending on the time of day. So instead of providing a convenient arrow above your car pointing you in the right direction you will have to fuck around with the camera to get your bearings, which is obviously wonderful when you're driving. When you die in the middle of a mission, you have to start over.

I was lead to believe this Tim Shafer guy could make a great game. I never played Psychonauts, but based on Brutal Legend I'll have to pass on that. I think anyone who described this as a great game, and certainly all the reviewers who gave it such high marks, are full of shit.

If I had to do that stupid ? out fo 10 thing to rate this I'd give it a 7 out of 10 at best.

 

[Wannabestig]

I have to agree. Though my friends don't consider Dimmu borgir, Opeth, In Flames, and Emporer and Angl metal, I thought some of the sound track was out of place (def leppard?! really? metal?). The game doesn't really do tradgedy. I'm not supposed to feel sad when I play a Tim Shafer game, with JACK BLACK in it. Thankfully I didn't pay for the game, I played it at my friends house, so when we got bored *cough* sidequests *cough* (yes that was lame) we just watched Tenacious D and had a better time

 

[John Funk]

There were a lot of stupid "little" things that will routinely bug the shit out of you. There is no mini map, so when you're driving you have to hit select all the time and bring up a map. The waypoints you set up on the map appear in the game world as light or smoke depending on the time of day. So instead of providing a convenient arrow above your car pointing you in the right direction you will have to fuck around with the camera to get your bearings, which is obviously wonderful when you're driving. When you die in the middle of a mission, you have to start over.

Look at your tail lights while driving. They tell you which way you should be turning.

 

[TsunamiWombat]

There were a lot of stupid "little" things that will routinely bug the shit out of you. There is no mini map, so when you're driving you have to hit select all the time and bring up a map. The waypoints you set up on the map appear in the game world as light or smoke depending on the time of day. So instead of providing a convenient arrow above your car pointing you in the right direction you will have to fuck around with the camera to get your bearings, which is obviously wonderful when you're driving. When you die in the middle of a mission, you have to start over.

Look at your tail lights while driving. They tell you which way you should be turning.

I never actually noticed that! Thanks Funkatronic!

I didn't read the review because my ears shut off after the "I didn't finish this game" part. It's everyones right to dislike a game, it's everyones right to shout about how they hate something they havn't experianced. But 'reviewing' a game you havn't played the majority of...Well...

Anyway, this does bring up some things I've wanted to say about Brutal Legend.

It's a great game, and yet an aweful game, at the same time. The gameplay mechanics simply don't gel the way they should in a well polished game. The world is expansive, colorful, and full of the same 3 or 4 area animals repeated over and over with little interactivity. Most of the side quests are repeated OVER AND OVER with a few original ones sticking out, that make you think they had more variety planned originally but just ran out of time and cut shit. The combat does get pretty boring after a while, there's not a good variety of upgrades...

The game took me and held me with it's great voice acting and it's story, and it's punchy and fun style, until the end. I'm glad I played it. But when you look at it's mechanics...it just seems like a sub par effort.

I love the game, but think it's a bad game. Dig?

 

[Blackadder51]

It wasn't that bad and i actually didn't mind the use of a light beacon to get your bearings together, also as you play further into the game more environments will be opened up and this will be reflected in enemies and your allies in the open world, also a 7/10?, you just bagged it out to the shitta yet say that it is a game which is better then most? You sir make little sense

 

[HyenaThePirate]

Most Schafer games end up like this.

They are heavy on 'originality', 'fun well-written story', and casual fun with a tongue in cheek, dark humor and visual style that seperates it from the non-stop clones that come out.
Quite frankly though, for all it's faults, I would still urge everyone to buy this game, if only to encourage more original content in the industry.

I mean, aside from Brutal Legend, which really is a decent game (maybe not game of the YEAR calibre but decent) what else is coming out this year?

Pick a game you liked last year or the year before, throw a "2" or in some cases a "3" behind it, and you pretty much have the entire 2009 Holiday season release catalog. While I am admittedly looking forward to SOME sequels, it somewhat concerns me that the majority of games worth owning that are coming out in the next few months happen to BE sequels. Worse, I feel that people naturally gravitate to the sequels because they broke ground and we are now acclimated to the game. For example, I didn't really think Assassin's Creed 1 was anything to write home about... but apparently everyone is eagerly awaiting a game to which I never would have made a sequel. Uncharted 2 surpassed it's predecessor, and Ratchet and Clank looks set to do the same. But does anyone expect anything less??
And yet I bet Borderlands will be met with lackluster reception as well as Demon Souls (which I have my own concerns about).

Bottom line... it seems like people are all too unforgiving when it comes to actual unique, original ip's but wholly embrace more of the same (Halo, Modern Warfare 2, et al).
So we should appreciate these little gems of originality when we can so that they will find more support. Lets not forget... we almost didn't even SEE this game... it almost found itself cancelled and unpublished.

Luckily Tim found support where he could, and as a result, we have a pretty fun little game full of originality and an interesting game world that we have never seen before. Is it a perfect game? Heavens no. But is it worthy playing and is it fun? Yes and Yes.
And really thats what matters.

 

[Geo Da Sponge]

Actually, I quite enjoyed the game. In fact I thought it was an excellent game; the basic combat isn't as good as a pure third person fighter, but it still worked pretty well. I definitely enjoyed the stage battles and they make a unique multiplayer with a good blend of strategy and action. Plus it has an excellent story; Schaeffer creates an extravagant and over the top heavy metal world and still manages to make you care about what happens in it. For example, look at the legends that can be found; even when they were talking about how the demons used the toe nail of a titan to create the human race I still wanted to know what came next.

Oh wait, I guess I'm full of shit because I say the game is good. I mean, what would I know? I've only played the game all the way through, unlike the OP.

And reptitive side missions? Really? I mean, yeah, they are pretty much divided into about four different categories, but you don't have to do them unless you want to. You can easily get more than enough fire tribute to get any upgrades you actually want by just exploring the world and completing the main missions. Finally, facemelter is only useful up to the point where the enemy starts using vehicles.

 

[scnj]

I'm enjoying it, but I'm on the second RTS battle and it's really annoying me. Please tell me there aren't many more.

 

[Supreme Unleaded]

i'm right with you on that. however i never bought the game, i thought it was going to be great untill i played the Demo. Damn that was so boring, and from the demo it was the most confined open world in the world.

 

[TsunamiWombat]

I'm enjoying it, but I'm on the second RTS battle and it's really annoying me. Please tell me there aren't many more.

There's like 4 or 5 more Bro, it's the rest of the game.

 

[Osaka-chaness]

Most Schafer games end up like this.

They are heavy on 'originality', 'fun well-written story', and casual fun with a tongue in cheek, dark humor and visual style that seperates it from the non-stop clones that come out.
Quite frankly though, for all it's faults, I would still urge everyone to buy this game, if only to encourage more original content in the industry.

I mean, aside from Brutal Legend, which really is a decent game (maybe not game of the YEAR calibre but decent) what else is coming out this year?

Pick a game you liked last year or the year before, throw a "2" or in some cases a "3" behind it, and you pretty much have the entire 2009 Holiday season release catalog. While I am admittedly looking forward to SOME sequels, it somewhat concerns me that the majority of games worth owning that are coming out in the next few months happen to BE sequels. Worse, I feel that people naturally gravitate to the sequels because they broke ground and we are now acclimated to the game. For example, I didn't really think Assassin's Creed 1 was anything to write home about... but apparently everyone is eagerly awaiting a game to which I never would have made a sequel. Uncharted 2 surpassed it's predecessor, and Ratchet and Clank looks set to do the same. But does anyone expect anything less??
And yet I bet Borderlands will be met with lackluster reception as well as Demon Souls (which I have my own concerns about).

Bottom line... it seems like people are all too unforgiving when it comes to actual unique, original ip's but wholly embrace more of the same (Halo, Modern Warfare 2, et al).
So we should appreciate these little gems of originality when we can so that they will find more support. Lets not forget... we almost didn't even SEE this game... it almost found itself cancelled and unpublished.

Luckily Tim found support where he could, and as a result, we have a pretty fun little game full of originality and an interesting game world that we have never seen before. Is it a perfect game? Heavens no. But is it worthy playing and is it fun? Yes and Yes.
And really thats what matters.

AGREED! Psychonauts was DEFINITELY not perfect either, but it was a damn fine game and was more unique than any other game back when it came out.

That said, Brutal Legend is, as Psychonauts was back a few years ago, insanely original. Sure it's a hack and slash with some magic, driving, and RTS mixed in, and that's been done before, but what Double Fine and Schafer put out is 20 times better than MOST games that are coming/have come out this year and is 100 times more unique. It's a shame that we have to live in a time where people by the same game year after year (with little improvements outside of graphics), and those same people can't ever enjoy the unique stuff.

If you don't enjoy the game, that's fine, but you shouldn't call it overrated. Sure it's not perfect but what game is these days?

 

[Sewblon]

Admitting that you haven't finished the game invalidates this review, and it didn't tell me anything that I didn't learn from the previews.

 

[whycantibelinus]

Bad review is bad.

Anyway, I have no interest in the game, but I don't know much more about it than I did before I read your review.

And no, you don't need a number, but I like how you say "it's shit" and then give it a 7 out of 10.

Jesus Christ, this is exactly what's wrong with reviewers.
"THIS IS TERRIBLE 9/10"
"WORST GAME OF THE YEAR 8/10"
"BEST GAME EVER 9/10"

Notice something?

This man is a genius.

7/10 suggests you think it is better than most games. Which you obviously think it is not.

Indeed, I was expecting you to say like 2/10 at best by the way you were talking. 7/10 is a game kind of worth playing.

 

[Dys]

I played through the game on brutal and did a total of maybe 3 sidequests...They are really not necissary thus making that complaint invalid.

Though there were parts of the game that I didn't like (especially the wannabe RTS stage battles), the rest of it I enjoyed enough though. I did think it was fun/funny and for the most part liked the soundtrack (though I suppose that's subjective). Overhyped? definately. A bad game? Not in any respect.

 

[Tonimata]

Bad review is bad.

Anyway, I have no interest in the game, but I don't know much more about it than I did before I read your review.

And no, you don't need a number, but I like how you say "it's shit" and then give it a 7 out of 10.

Jesus Christ, this is exactly what's wrong with reviewers.
"THIS IS TERRIBLE 9/10"
"WORST GAME OF THE YEAR 8/10"
"BEST GAME EVER 9/10"

Notice something?

I simply have to answer to you.

YOU ARE RIGHT!

And yes, with that and one sentence reviews (which by Cthulhu shouldn't be so over appreciated), the real good reviews and reviewers are getting thrown aside.

So yes, please, agreeing with Max, more elaboration, more basis, more evidence, and by Cthulhu (again), better writing style. I've read essays on the walls of the younger courses that have more eloquence than this. But then again, there's much, MUCH worse, and in this very site, where we usually claim ourselves to be well educated.

Oh and...

The combat generally consists of hitting A to use your axe, electrocuting people with your guitar, and using the facemelter solo (aka spell). There are other moves sure, but they are not the facemelter and therefore suck.

...you cannot possibly consider yourself a metalhead if you find something to not like in this game play.

 

[Osaka-chaness]

Exactly. Facemelter is good but there are other moves that are better for certain situations (Bring It On Home is epic for crowds, Morning Sun (or whatever it's called...I can't remember) is good against the later enemies in the game, etc). Just because a game doesn't have 10 instant kill attacks doesn't mean they all suck. Who wants to kill off enemies in one attack when you can burn them, shock them, put them in a fountain of sparkly death, or launch them into the bleachers of infinite pain? xD

 

[rokkolpo]

u gave it a 7/10 that equals liking it alot.

for 8/10=awesome
and 9/10=perfect
so 10/10=is gods masterpiece

 

[SnootyEnglishman]

HOw can you call this a review when you havent even played the whole game. It gets more crazy as you go on and Schafer pulls an M.Night Shamalan a couple of times throughout the story. As far as the stage battles go yes there's a bit much of those and it seems like they replace and incredibly awesome boss fight