What Brutal Legend was supposed to play like.

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stupid Demon

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It not an RTS at all!!!
it is whatever you would call Star Wars: Battlefront II.
play a few rounds of that.
jedi jumping around, killing clones, taking control points, getting in a ATST to kill the other jedi, giving orders and geting better foot solders as the round go on.
I would call it a HFC, hero flied commander game.

the story is a good(not grate, but good) tutorial on how to play right.
you can't market gameplay so EA not really to blame (thay still suck tho)
It is more that Double Fine has a rep like a fine winery and brutal legend was top shelf Tequila.
 

Furioso

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This was an issue? Huh, I figured out that was how it was supposed to work pretty much right off the bat. I mean, why else would they give you all those weapon upgrade and double team abilities?
 

ZippyDSMlee

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Whatever hybrid you call it it was a great game a shame they didn't do more with the RTS elements allow for deeper control of production of forces, staging forces and sending forces out.
 

LisaB1138

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random_bars said:
LisaB1138 said:
I was so disappointed by Brutal Legend. As a big Psychonauts fan, I was hoping for more. The concept was brilliant, but the RTS was not the gameplay the game needed.
First of all - did you watch the video, or read the OP, or even read the topic title?

Secondly, how exactly is axe-swinging, hot-rod-driving, all-out heavy metal warfare not the absolute most fitting gameplay possible for a heavy metal themed game?
To answer your first question, yes. What something was "supposed to be" has very little bearing on what something is.

And where did I complain about axe-swinging or hot-rod-driving? I said I felt the RTS - particularly after the game's marketing - to be out of place, awkward and not very much fun.
 

random_bars

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LisaB1138 said:
To answer your first question, yes. What something was "supposed to be" has very little bearing on what something is.
But it's footage of Brutal Legend. Like, a video of the actual game. It absolutely IS what it is. This isn't some hypothetical 'what if' scenario, with footage of a different game or something - it's exactly what the game plays like, because it is the game.

And where did I complain about axe-swinging or hot-rod-driving? I said I felt the RTS - particularly after the game's marketing - to be out of place, awkward and not very much fun.
You didn't directly, but those are what the stage battles are about. Not RTS-ing, not stopping doing all the fun action stuff. The exact opposite, in fact: doing MORE of the fun action stuff, MORE of the axe-swinging and hot-rod-driving and demon slaying. It wasn't a switch-out of the action gameplay, it was the conglomeration of ALL the action gameplay from the rest of the game.

If you felt it was out of place, or in fact if you're describing it as 'the RTS' at all, it suggests that you didn't really play it like you were supposed to at all. Not that I'm blaming you for that. I didn't really grasp it at first either. And that is undeniably a problem with the game. But it's a problem of tutorialization, not of bad mechanics. That's what I'm trying to say here.
 

Frostbite3789

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DioWallachia said:
Maybe I'm just crazy, but I'd say these things aren't in any way equal. Bad marketing doesn't cancel out being the sole reason a game was able to be released, essentially, because the former publisher left it dead and buried.
 

piinyouri

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I find the OP kid of hard to believe since hacking and slashing never won me an RTS battle.
'Cause trust me, I tried.
 

random_bars

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piinyouri said:
I find the OP kid of hard to believe since hacking and slashing never won me an RTS battle.
'Cause trust me, I tried.
There's video evidence right there in my post, you know.

Buretsu said:
What part of 'action gameplay' is pausing the action to create new units to do the fighting? Are you saying you can win these stage battles without doing anything other than hacking and slashing? Maybe you should show some video of you not touching the RTS elements of the game.
I'm not saying that, no. But what I am saying is that 90% of your time in battle should be spent battling - killing something in some way or other, be it your opponent, their troops, or a building or leech, and be it with your axe moves, with a double team, with a guitar solo. Of course you have to make troops and tell them what to do, I'm not denying that - but the point of the troops is to help you fight, not so you can direct them around exclusively from the sky and never get involved yourself.
 

Hattingston

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I rather liked Brutal Legend. While the stage battles were probably the weakest bit, I still enjoyed them. I agree though, some more explanantion of how each unit functioned versus the others would have been nice, maybe add some cutscenes where units weak to the new units you encounter attack each other, to show strengths and weaknesses.
 

Dandark

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I enjoyed Brutal Legend. The singleplayer was fun and I would have enjoyed the multiplayer if not for the lag I got. The game felt a bit short though, it seemed like it was supposed to have more content and was cut partway through which is likely the case since Activision and EA were involved.

I only rented it but I would buy a sequel if they ever released one which sadly I doubt they will.
 

Scrustle

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What? No, the game was marketed wrongly because it gave the impression that it was nothing but a hack and slash. The poor RTS elements came as an unwelcome surprise.
 

DioWallachia

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Frostbite3789 said:
DioWallachia said:
Maybe I'm just crazy, but I'd say these things aren't in any way equal. Bad marketing doesn't cancel out being the sole reason a game was able to be released, essentially, because the former publisher left it dead and buried.
Its just that with the money spend on the marketing to COVER the fact that the game is TOTALLY NOT a RTS (cause its a bad word in the industry...........for some reason) they could have use it to pay for the developement so it wont feel as rushed. Just think aboit it, they just needed to show the RTS elements and the multiplayer focus and problem solved, no need to cover the fact that they wasted money on an IP that they were afraid to market anyway.
 

BrotherRool

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DioWallachia said:
Frostbite3789 said:
DioWallachia said:
Maybe I'm just crazy, but I'd say these things aren't in any way equal. Bad marketing doesn't cancel out being the sole reason a game was able to be released, essentially, because the former publisher left it dead and buried.
Its just that with the money spend on the marketing to COVER the fact that the game is TOTALLY NOT a RTS (cause its a bad word in the industry...........for some reason) they could have use it to pay for the developement so it wont feel as rushed. Just think aboit it, they just needed to show the RTS elements and the multiplayer focus and problem solved, no need to cover the fact that they wasted money on an IP that they were afraid to market anyway.
You're denying the fact that several people in this thread and ltos of the reviewers, just plain didn't enjoy the RTS elements. Okay they could have been more prepared, but what was shown in the video wasn't a marketing failure (because you're suggesting that you're supposed to play it more like a hack 'n slash than an RTS) but the game failing to teach people how to play it properly. And even then, peoples complaints, like the lack of minimap seem perfectly valid.

The RTS thing was a surprise, but for most people it was unwelcome, not because they didn't expect it, but because they didn't enjoy it. There's clearly some great strengths to it, I know some people who hold it as some of the best multiplayer they've ever played, but it seems like it's undeniably niche and is probably quite divisive in whether people like it or not, and enough people were of the 'don't like' crowd to create a negative vibe that the marketing can't solely account for. The game would have undeniably sold better with adequate marketing, but I don't believe it would have sold so much more that it would be a great success or that the people who felt the RTS sucked wouldn't think so. Maybe if the marketing focused on how you're meant to play the RTS... but you can't rely on a trailer to inform the players how to play the game, that's a failure of the game instead.

In the end the marketing was impressive when you look at the non gameplay focus, it got the tone, the humour, and the Metal right and it did a lot to try and draw in fans of those people and of Jack Black who would be uninterested in games normally. I think they even held a concert didn't they? That's a good difficult marketing job done well, it's just in hiding the RTS that they made a bad call.

I even agree with their logic. 'Console RTS' would kill my interest in any game because I'd just assume it would suck (and that wouldn't be helped when a lot of reviewers then indeed felt that it sucked), it seems logical to try and avoid that. Instead they should have tried for rebranding, so we know it's there, but not told that it was the be all and end all of the game and that was the marketing failure.
 

DioWallachia

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BrotherRool said:
DioWallachia said:
Frostbite3789 said:
DioWallachia said:
Maybe I'm just crazy, but I'd say these things aren't in any way equal. Bad marketing doesn't cancel out being the sole reason a game was able to be released, essentially, because the former publisher left it dead and buried.
Its just that with the money spend on the marketing to COVER the fact that the game is TOTALLY NOT a RTS (cause its a bad word in the industry...........for some reason) they could have use it to pay for the developement so it wont feel as rushed. Just think aboit it, they just needed to show the RTS elements and the multiplayer focus and problem solved, no need to cover the fact that they wasted money on an IP that they were afraid to market anyway.
You're denying the fact that several people in this thread and ltos of the reviewers, just plain didn't enjoy the RTS elements. Okay they could have been more prepared, but what was shown in the video wasn't a marketing failure (because you're suggesting that you're supposed to play it more like a hack 'n slash than an RTS) but the game failing to teach people how to play it properly. And even then, peoples complaints, like the lack of minimap seem perfectly valid.

The RTS thing was a surprise, but for most people it was unwelcome, not because they didn't expect it, but because they didn't enjoy it. There's clearly some great strengths to it, I know some people who hold it as some of the best multiplayer they've ever played, but it seems like it's undeniably niche and is probably quite divisive in whether people like it or not, and enough people were of the 'don't like' crowd to create a negative vibe that the marketing can't solely account for. The game would have undeniably sold better with adequate marketing, but I don't believe it would have sold so much more that it would be a great success or that the people who felt the RTS sucked wouldn't think so. Maybe if the marketing focused on how you're meant to play the RTS... but you can't rely on a trailer to inform the players how to play the game, that's a failure of the game instead.

In the end the marketing was impressive when you look at the non gameplay focus, it got the tone, the humour, and the Metal right and it did a lot to try and draw in fans of those people and of Jack Black who would be uninterested in games normally. I think they even held a concert didn't they? That's a good difficult marketing job done well, it's just in hiding the RTS that they made a bad call.

I even agree with their logic. 'Console RTS' would kill my interest in any game because I'd just assume it would suck (and that wouldn't be helped when a lot of reviewers then indeed felt that it sucked), it seems logical to try and avoid that. Instead they should have tried for rebranding, so we know it's there, but not told that it was the be all and end all of the game and that was the marketing failure.
That is why i made a thread about comparing "Sacrifice" with "Brutal Legend" who are of the same kind of "uniquess" if you will, and all what i got from that is that people still dont know if both ARE a RTS or something completely diferent.

I get what you mean about EA being right about covering the "Console RTS", but still, they just needed to use THAT money to polish the RTS and lessen the impact of the sudden genre shift and the lack of proper tutorial.
 

BrotherRool

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DioWallachia said:
That is why i made a thread about comparing "Sacrifice" with "Brutal Legend" who are of the same kind of "uniquess" if you will, and all what i got from that is that people still dont know if both ARE a RTS or something completely diferent.

I get what you mean about EA being right about covering the "Console RTS", but still, they just needed to use THAT money to polish the RTS and lessen the impact of the sudden genre shift and the lack of proper tutorial.
It'd be interesting to see if the game would have sold more. Companies have some rules of thumb for advertising and advertising effectiveness but I don't know what they are or what the budgets were of Brutal Legend to start with. I like to imagine they've got quite a good statistical system for that worked out.

Still we'll never know. I guess if Psychonauts is an example of a game failing to be a huge success because the budget went into making the game good instead of marketing, at least Psychonauts had the quality to gain cult status and make money long after it should have stopped.

All the same, I could still see that happening with Brutal Legend, less for the gameplay but mainly for being a very unique game with a unique theme. How old is it? Is it too early to be expecting it to appear on 'Most underrated' lists?
 

random_bars

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BrotherRool said:
You're denying the fact that several people in this thread and ltos of the reviewers, just plain didn't enjoy the RTS elements. Okay they could have been more prepared, but what was shown in the video wasn't a marketing failure (because you're suggesting that you're supposed to play it more like a hack 'n slash than an RTS) but the game failing to teach people how to play it properly. And even then, peoples complaints, like the lack of minimap seem perfectly valid.

The RTS thing was a surprise, but for most people it was unwelcome, not because they didn't expect it, but because they didn't enjoy it. There's clearly some great strengths to it, I know some people who hold it as some of the best multiplayer they've ever played, but it seems like it's undeniably niche and is probably quite divisive in whether people like it or not, and enough people were of the 'don't like' crowd to create a negative vibe that the marketing can't solely account for. The game would have undeniably sold better with adequate marketing, but I don't believe it would have sold so much more that it would be a great success or that the people who felt the RTS sucked wouldn't think so. Maybe if the marketing focused on how you're meant to play the RTS... but you can't rely on a trailer to inform the players how to play the game, that's a failure of the game instead.
You're right, there was definitely a huge problem with how the gameplay was explained: a major oversight in the fact that the way the developers were playing would be hugely different to the way most people playing it for the first time would feel they should play. However I do think the marketing played a huge part in this.

Ultimately I think the core issue is that missions which were supposed to teach important abilities and gameplay pieces, such as the boar stunning mission or the headbanger mines, felt like isolated one-off gameplay sections rather than parts of a larger whole. In general I don't think it's a good idea to teach your core gameplay mechanics with missions that feel like one-offs without explicitly telling people that yes, they do need to remember this stuff, but I think the fact that the marketing didn't lead people to expect stage battles to begin with was a big part of it too.

I do completely understand why the game was marketed as an action game though - because whether you consider it RTS or not, it is absolutely, undeniably an action game the whole way through. But if it had been marketed as an action game that ramps up to all-out heavy metal warfare, with footage of the stage battles as played by the developers shown, I think the game would have been much better understood - people may have made the 'RTS' connection themselves, but they'd be able to plainly see that it wasn't meant to be played as though it was a traditional RTS, so there wouldn't be a mass confusion upon the game's release.

Instead the marketing took the angle of highlighting Jack Black's involvement, showing lots of cutscenes, and only showing the occasional one-second gameplay segment of fighting a couple of enemies at a time. While this did well to draw people in, I think in the end it did more damage than good. And while it's true to say that a lot of people who played the game didn't like the stage battles, I don't think you can really extrapolate this to mean 'most people don't like this style of gameplay in general' because there was so much misunderstanding involved. I'm fairly certain that had most people been able to experience the battles in the way the developers did, they would be mostly praised and held up as the best part of the game.