The Brutal Legend betrayal.

[Shaunofthebread]

One day when browsing the game marketplace on Xbox Live I saw a demo for Brutal Legend. It looked pretty good and once I started playing it I was hooked. It was absolutley amazing. An amazing action/adventure game. How wrong i was. Upon buying it I had discovered what I had really been brought into.
A RTS sandbox game. Extremely dissappointing. So did any of you fall into this trap and have you ever fell for another game hiding as another genre?

 

[Hiphophippo]

It didn't really bother me. The game was servicable and I was basically in it for the writing and art anyway.

 

[Loop Stricken]

It didn't really bother me. The game was servicable and I was basically in it for the writing and art anyway.

Essentially this, although it's really more of a marketing fail than anything else.
Besides, Ophelia was hot.

 

[tzimize]

It didn't really bother me. The game was servicable and I was basically in it for the writing and art anyway.

Essentially this, although it's really more of a marketing fail than anything else.
Besides, Ophelia was hot.

Agree with all of the above.

The gameplay itself was pretty meh, but the scenes were awesome, the story funny and thats all I really wanted.

 

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

I knew exactly what I was getting into when I bought the game.

However, I was really more into the story, the music, and who was doing the voice acting than I was the RTS mechanics. The only 'trap' I fell into was that it wasn't exactly how I would expect the RTS to run, which was kinda annoying. It wasn't great or really painful, it was serviceable.

 

[Littaly]

I think a lot of people did, 80% of the talk around the game when it came out was about EA's mismarketing.

I actually kind of liked the whole RTS/Hack 'n Slash mashup, it wasn't perfect, but it's kind of fun once you get the hang of it.

 

[lostlambda]

i liked it even more because of the RTS aspect of the game something to tide me over from C&C 3 to the very bad C&C 4

not to mention as a metal head/head banger i loved the story and art

 

[Blueruler182]

Kind of? Maybe? I was told by everyone that Half-Life 2 was this amazing marvel of the gaming industry for years that tells an amazing expansive story with well characterized NPCs, and I saw NONE of that. I saw a mediocre shooter with way too many vehicle sections and a digital girlfriend.

 

[Ordinaryundone]

I really liked Brutal Legend, but I actually bought it on the same pretense you did, and was kind of disappointed when I realized that it would be more RTS than hack and slash. That said, once I got over it and rolled with the genre change I really enjoyed it.

Plus, the writing is funny, the story is interesting, the voice acting is top notch and it has one of the most visually interesting worlds I can think of. Plus a great soundtrack. I can take a little genre whiplash for that.

 

[DAAANtheMAAAN]

The later RTS segments frustrated me a bit, but it came as an interesting surprise to me at first. I enjoy the fact that you can jump into the battle and fight the enemy, but I hate that that's pretty much the only way you can defend anything with any real effect.

 

[Simeon Ivanov]

At least you GOT Brutal Legend on your consoles ;_;

 

[Yx0que]

Brütal Legend suffers greatly from the "we have neither the time or the money to make this game really worth it"-syndrome. Playing the game you can see and nearly touch the potential, but it never truly delivers. It's still a perfectly serviceable game, although with a rather large number of flaws, but I did enjoy the game.

Spoiler

Except for the end which made me scream: "Is this the end? How can this be the end? This is like half of the story!"

 

[Tobias Svalas]

It was absolutley amazing. An amazing action/adventure game. How wrong i was. Upon buying it I had discovered what I had really been brought into.

Yeah, it was the same here. I didn't know what to make with the whole RTS/Sandbox gameplay. I enjoy the story and writing as much as the next guy, but I still haven't finished it.

 

[darkcalling]

The "Trap" of it being half RTS falls squarely on EA's marketing department. I fell for it too but i still love the game, despite the fact that I LOATHE rts games otherwise. lol

 

[6_Qubed]

The only thing that really disappointed me was the weapon damage. I mean seriously, I have an axe that shoots lightning, another "axe" that also shoots lightning, and it still takes like five hits to take out the little guys, one at a time? WHAT THE HELL TIM YOU SAID THIS GAME WAS METAL

 

[random_bars]

The only thing that really disappointed me was the weapon damage. I mean seriously, I have an axe that shoots lightning, another "axe" that also shoots lightning, and it still takes like five hits to take out the little guys, one at a time? WHAT THE HELL TIM YOU SAID THIS GAME WAS METAL

That's what the Double Teams were for. What would be the point in building an army if you could just kill everything on your own? No, the axe combat was designed to be used in a pinch against weak enemies or when you don't have any troops around, but it was intentionally much more effective (and fun) to use a Double Team when possible - blast stuff with a charged version of a Razor Girl's bow, stun a whole bunch of guys with a Thunderhog bass blast, hop on the back of a Fire Baron and encircle a group of enemies in a ring of fire that closes in and burns them all.

Unfortunately the game never emphasized enough how important the Double Teams are, so nobody used them. And because they're so essential to tie the whole battle gameplay together, the fact that the majority of players seemed to completely ignore them meant that nobody really experienced the gameplay as the developers intended, so everyone has complains about what is essentially a different game than Double Fine made.

And there's also the fact that the battles are a lot more fun in the multiplayer, which a lot of people ignored entirely.

But yeah, as everyone in the thread has said this was EA's fault for being shitty at advertising (as we've seen time and time again - the phrases 'Your Mom Will Hate It' and 'Sin To Win' come to mind). The actual game was pretty good in single player, and absolutely fantastic in multiplayer. It's just that for whatever reason EA thought it would be a better idea to put all the advertising focus on Jack Black and say nothing at all about the actual gameplay.

 

[Gyrohelix]

I played it, said aloud "I need this game!" played it through once, twice, THREE TIMES, never looked back, and played it a 4th time

 

[6_Qubed]

The only thing that really disappointed me was the weapon damage. I mean seriously, I have an axe that shoots lightning, another "axe" that also shoots lightning, and it still takes like five hits to take out the little guys, one at a time? WHAT THE HELL TIM YOU SAID THIS GAME WAS METAL

That's what the Double Teams were for. What would be the point in building an army if you could just kill everything on your own? No, the axe combat was designed to be used in a pinch against weak enemies or when you don't have any troops around, but it was intentionally much more effective (and fun) to use a Double Team when possible - blast stuff with a charged version of a Razor Girl's bow, stun a whole bunch of guys with a Thunderhog bass blast, hop on the back of a Fire Baron and encircle a group of enemies in a ring of fire that closes in and burns them all.

Unfortunately the game never emphasized enough how important the Double Teams are, so nobody used them. And because they're so essential to tie the whole battle gameplay together, the fact that the majority of players seemed to completely ignore them meant that nobody really experienced the gameplay as the developers intended, so everyone has complains about what is essentially a different game than Double Fine made.

And there's also the fact that the battles are a lot more fun in the multiplayer, which a lot of people ignored entirely.

But yeah, as everyone in the thread has said this was pretty much entirely EA's fault for being shitty at advertising (as we've seen time and time again - the phrases 'Your Mom Will Hate It' and 'Sin To Win' come to mind). The actual game was pretty good in single player, and absolutely fantastic in multiplayer. It's just that for whatever reason EA thought it would be a better idea to put all the advertising focus on Jack Black and say nothing at all about the actual gameplay.

Okay, so it's an RTS that emphasizes unit interaction. I get that. But if I am given a badass-looking weapon, bestowed unto me by the Prince of F[bleep]ing Darkness Himself, I expect it to be, you know, BADASS.

That's just me though.

(No, I really don't have a problem writing "fuck" on a public forum, but I think it's more fun to refer to Ozzy that way.)

 

[random_bars]

okay, so it's an RTS that emphasizes unit interaction. I get that. But if i am given a badass-looking weapon, I expect it to be, you know, BADASS.

That's just me though.

I can see your point, although it's one of those cases where they designed the game for balance rather than realism, I guess. Lots of games do the same thing, where you have a huge sword or whatever that would kill most things in a single hit, and yet you have to smash away at them until long past the point where they should be a pile of limbs and organs on the floor. I prefer this approach, but I can understand why you wouldn't.