Zero Punctuation: Brutal Legend

[cobra_ky]

I think people are finally starting to realize that Tim Schafer really isn't all that good at designing games. He's a tremendous writer and creative director, and that alone makes his games a must-play experience, but mechanically, the games themselves don't really stand well on their own. Grim Fandango was ultimately a generic adventure game plagued with difficult/nonsensical puzzles. Psychonauts was decent platformer with decent level design and crippling technical issues. I don't have a PS3/360, but from what i'm hearing about Brutal Legend, it sounds like another Schafer game that's more fun to watch then actually play.

 

[ShotgunSmoke]

No Uncharted 2?

*sad face*

This made me want to play Psyconauts.

 

[Takoto]

When he mentioned Mouse Trap, I nostalgia'd.

Anyway, another funny review, and I wasn't planning on getting Brutal Legend anyway.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

Lol awesome review I was listening to a Megadeth song right before watching this (first track off Peace Sells) so seeing and hearing the Megadeth reference cheered me.

Having said that Im bothered with the whole Jack Black thing, he ISN'T a representation of metal, in fact he doesn't know what real metal is, not even his band plays real metal.

I creep in the bedroom
I slip into bed
I know if I wake her
I'll wake up dead

[squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee widdly widdly widdly widdly wank wank solo solo

de ne de nen de nen
chuggy chuggy chuggy chugga
den ne de ne dene
chuggy chugga

OH I wonder will she find out... about the other... other loveeeer..

DIANA!!!

Ahem.

I fucking love that song

 

[Eldarion]

Nice review, kinda thought the genius behind Psychonaughts would get buried under Jack Black and metal garbage.

Though funnily enough the metal and Jack Black are the stronger points of the game. Its real flaw is the lack of focus in the gameplay. So really you are not making any sense there.

Yhea, I didn't think so.

The story was pushed out of the way so that Jack Black could share his metal fantasy.

The gameplay is a moot point, the story mattered more to me and it was hardly there.

The story is a metal fantasy, you can't push out a metal fantasy to replace it with an other metal fantasy. Jack Black's fantasy? This is Tim Schafer's world he is quite clearly a metal head as any one who has played full throttle would know.

There isn't enough Tim Schafer in there to keep me interested.

I didn't like the game for my reasons, you don't need to get all butthurt because I have a different opinion than you.

Thats nice? Good for you? Though if I am butt hurt why are you the one freaking out here? I mean you started off sounding like you had not played the game especially when you where picking out two of the better parts of the game as its week points rather than the worryingly unfocused gameplay. Though apparently you have played it so how nice for you, though I am a little unsure of what you mean by not enough Tim Schafer in it. Brutal legend is clearly his work maybe not the parts you like but that does not turn it into someone else's work though.

Colour me confused I guess. Though I do have a strong urge to find and play full throttle again, I am sure some one I know must still have it.

You are the one quoting me and taking issue with MY opinion here dude.

If you weren't butthurt you could just ignore it, but no keep taking issue with what I thought about the game.

The story was weak, the characters were cliche and the metal music could have been better.

I didn't like it, but I suppose you will have to go on a little tangent in response to my opinion now.

 

[Hallow'sEve]

Okay, this has been bugging me for some time, what does "cor" mean? Yahtzee uses it quite a bit in his reviews. I assume it's an Australian thing, is it like the Australian equal for "cool"?

Nope, it's an English term.
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/102137.html

THANK YOU
It's been bugging me for ages. I've been wanting to use it, but I didn't want to sound like an idiot, not knowing what it meant.

 

[thevegetarianzombie]

It lacks so many of the elements of a traditional RTS that calling it one feels inaccurate. The stage battles may have had elements of an RTS, but it also had elements of a squad-based war game, a God-of-War style hack n slash, and a vehicle fighter. It was something genuinely original that got instantly pigeonholed.

Besides, not counting a piss-easy tutorial, there are exactly five stage battles averaging no more than an hour apiece. Considering that I clocked about 20 hours in this game, the stage battles seem more like an extremely well-constructed minigame. And they were a lot more fun that "hit the weak point three times to slay the giant monster and save the world."

This vid still made me laugh, though.

 

[Nate00n]

Hi i always watch zero and have brutal legend i found it's a really good game true some points they dont tell you what to do but unless you have played the full game, like metal, jack black, demons, and any other wacko thing you can give it a bad review so to speek its not for everyone fair enough but still everyone can get a laugh out of it

 

[3_of_8]

Thank you for pronouncing the umlaut correctly. It is highly appreciated. A lot of people, especially Americans, have a habit of ignoring the fact that there are two little dots above the character. Then again, Americans also have a habit of ignoring the fact that there are no WMDs in Iraq, so... anyway... where was I... ah, right, thank you.

 

[Nate00n]

LONG LIVE BRUTAL LEGEND, JACK BLACK, AND AS YOU CALL IT METAL GARBAGE WHOOP ORMAGODEN!!!!!!

 

[Malkavian]

A good solid review, that doesn't get all caught up in the hype. I fully agree with you on all these points, and was somewhat dissapointed with the game(thoughs till enjoying it).

I have one little nitpicking to do... About the motorforges. You complain that you have to ride around finding these things for yourself, without even knowing what they look like. Well, the game tells you to look for Relic flowers, and it'll take you aprox 10 minuts to find the first motorforge, either by a minimum ammount of free roaming, or simply by driving towards objectives in the mainquest. Having to find things out for yourself shouldn't be a critique in my oppinion - game's are far too easy these days, and the gamer is spoonfed every little agonizing plotdetail and gamemechanic in too many games. And if I recall correctly, you have complained the same in several videos. I know Brütal Legend isn't excactly a challenge(I played it on Brütal, and still wasn't challenged), and scattering objects in an open world and allowing you to solve the not-very-complex riddle on how to find a motorforge is hardly a revolution in games difficulty, but at least you're not being forcefed everything in the game.

 

[Antlovesabi]

Been waiting for this review for the last hour and just noticed it got posted at 4 not 5. Oh well. Great point made about the demo and the full game.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

Not to try and destroy Yahtzee's point with the RTS thing, but after the game came out Tim Schafer came out and said not to play it like an RTS and to play it more like a hack and slash with RTS elements. Like you should be down there a fair bit with your guys, you just need to replenish them every once in a while.

As I have been trying to point out for the last two weeks...

THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN EXPLAINED IN THE GAME.

AT least now everyone will agree with me because thier lord and master Yahtzee said it.

 

[MGlBlaze]

Alright, although I myself actually enjoyed Brutal Legend quite a lot, I have to say, I know where Mr. Croshaw's coming from.

What makes it even worse is perhaps the fact that I don't have a HDTV hooked up to my 360, so whatever the game does tell you in the journal-type thing is totally illegible to me, meaning I can't read a damn thing about any of the other units, or anything else for that matter.

He was right with the game not telling you much about what you were supposed to do, either; It took me ages to figure out how to change Mt. Rockmore (and even then, it's only because I stumbled upon the place you're meant to go to totally by accident), but this also extents to other things; particularly the Dragon Statues and the bound Legends, meaning I went through the entire game on Brutal difficulty without learning ANY back-story or getting any upgrades. I though I needed a new solo for them, but it turns out you're just supposed to use your guitar attacks.

As for the RTS elements, there are two ways it could have been made better; 1) if EA didn't decide to market the game the way they did and almost hid the fact that there'd be the RTS sections in the game, and 2) if the game made explicitly clear that you weren't meant to play it like an RTS, which gave me a lot of pain in my first encounters with the Tear Drinkers. I play it like an RTS: They constantly hand my ass to me. I play it on a more action side and use lots of double-teams (Which we're all apparently SUPPOSED to do, not like we'd ever know unless we read Schafer's blog post): I get through them no problem.

On top of this is the fact that the entire first half of the game is spent fighting 'the dragon' Lionwhite, but neither the Tear Drinkers nor the Tainted Coil get much introduction. I mean, you fight the Tainted Coil ONCE in the entire game, and that's RIGHT after you finish off the Tear Drinkers, who are already pretty short-lived. Some extra development time for these factions would have benefited the game a lot.

The last thing is the ever-so-slightly dodgy aiming mechanics with the Death Rack sub-missions and other things in the RTS sections. It seems that a lot of the time, if you aim an enemy at the center of the cross-hair, you miss, while if you aim a little LOWER, you hit them. I could be mistaken here, but this took some getting used to and resulted in a number of failed missions and wasted time.

As I've said before, though, I do enjoy the game and found it to be a lot of fun (being a fan of metal helped), but it's seriously lacking and seems to be on the opposite scale of overhyped-versus-obscure than what a lot of Schafer's games usually are.

Yes, I have a lot of free time, thanks for noticing.

AT least now everyone will agree with me because thier lord and master Yahtzee said it.

Well, I agreed with you before this review (and incidentally before I made this account), but I'd wager that to be small comfort.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Well I did say this was a bad idea when I fist saw any reference to the game, and I see no reason to change that opinion. Of course, I have a severely low opinion of Jack Black so anything that involves him immediately turns me off.
I don't get why developers feel the need to combine genres. The end result is often a bastardized mess, not always, but often. Loved the example of the straight-line block. Funny.

 

[solidstatemind]

Heh. Pretty amusing vid. Particularly the roman soldier tapping his buddy on the shoulder...

That said, I have to call bullshit on one particular point:
Yahtzee, it is positively and absolutely false that you are in any way, shape, or form 'easy going'. In fact, the ludicrousness of that statement made me laugh harder than any other portion of the video. I don't know if that's good or bad...

And people please: get over the fact that Yahtzee hates SSBB, ok?

 

[Worsle]

Nice review, kinda thought the genius behind Psychonaughts would get buried under Jack Black and metal garbage.

Though funnily enough the metal and Jack Black are the stronger points of the game. Its real flaw is the lack of focus in the gameplay. So really you are not making any sense there.

Yhea, I didn't think so.

The story was pushed out of the way so that Jack Black could share his metal fantasy.

The gameplay is a moot point, the story mattered more to me and it was hardly there.

The story is a metal fantasy, you can't push out a metal fantasy to replace it with an other metal fantasy. Jack Black's fantasy? This is Tim Schafer's world he is quite clearly a metal head as any one who has played full throttle would know.

There isn't enough Tim Schafer in there to keep me interested.

I didn't like the game for my reasons, you don't need to get all butthurt because I have a different opinion than you.

Thats nice? Good for you? Though if I am butt hurt why are you the one freaking out here? I mean you started off sounding like you had not played the game especially when you where picking out two of the better parts of the game as its week points rather than the worryingly unfocused gameplay. Though apparently you have played it so how nice for you, though I am a little unsure of what you mean by not enough Tim Schafer in it. Brutal legend is clearly his work maybe not the parts you like but that does not turn it into someone else's work though.

Colour me confused I guess. Though I do have a strong urge to find and play full throttle again, I am sure some one I know must still have it.

You are the one quoting me and taking issue with MY opinion here dude.

If you weren't butthurt you could just ignore it, but no keep taking issue with what I thought about the game.

The story was weak, the characters were cliche and the metal music could have been better.

I didn't like it, but I suppose you will have to go on a little tangent in response to my opinion now.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. You say some thing and then some one can either respond or choose not too, that is how comments forums work. Now you freaking out about some one daring to have a different opinion that could be seen as a little hurt in the butt however just responding? It kind of renders the term meaningless.

Also believe it or not other people form opinions too. Now these opinions might be meaningless or the might be important but every one in the world forms them and they do not always agree with yours. That is how the world works.

 

[DoanDavid]

Great review.

Nice review.
I never knew that Mr. Croshaw has studied german

If you read through his archive on fullyramblomatic.com he once posted an update saying he studied German in high school.

 

[Abedeus]

Not to try and destroy Yahtzee's point with the RTS thing, but after the game came out Tim Schafer came out and said not to play it like an RTS and to play it more like a hack and slash with RTS elements. Like you should be down there a fair bit with your guys, you just need to replenish them every once in a while.

You know that you failed if you have to explain how to play your game to GAMERS. Because people playing games 10+ years (or 15+, what the hell) are usually considered gamers.

 

[Furioso]

I love Brutal Legend but he does raise some interesting points, mostly how the story is lacking, but as a message to all of you do not judge a game based on someone else's opinion, rent the game for yourself and see if you like it or not. Oh and even though the game doesnt explain where motor forges are and whatnot its not exactly hard to find, they are surrounded by giant bright red flowers, kinda hard to miss really...