Preview: Brutal Legend
GAME: BRUTAL LEGEND
FORMAT: XBOX 360/PS3
DEVELOPER: DOUBLE FINE PRODUCTIONS
PUBLISHER: ELECTRONIC ARTS
We here at Newb Review recently got our hands on a demo of Tim (THE SECRET OF MONKEY ISLAND, GRIM FANDANGO) Shafer’s latest game BRUTAL LEGEND. Before getting down to the specifics of the game, let’s address the elephant in the room. Jack Black. Love him. Hate him. Is there anyone that feels differently about him? Personally, he is not my cup of steaming hot leaf based beverage, but if he were on fire, and the only available water source were the contents of my bladder, I would feel compelled to relieve him of his anguish. Why do I bring this up? Jack Black is the main voice actor in this game. Fortunately the script is genuinely amusing, and clearly the director had Jack Black on a tight leash. From what we can tell from our brief hands on, Black is fairly subdued in his performance. With that being said, let’s get down to the important stuff – what the game is actually like.
Eddie Riggs, our hero and all round world’s greatest roadie.
Our Hero Eddie Riggs, voiced by Jack Black, is the greatest roadie in the world, who can fix anything. This is displayed in the introductory cut scene where Eddie impresses and frightens a band by repairing an utterly destroyed guitar. From the outset this band that Eddie works for are portrayed as vacuous morons blindly following the tastes of their “tween demographic”. After an accident on stage, Eddie is injured, and his blood drips on to his belt buckle, summoning a monstrous god of heavy metal, which not only kills the band and the audience, but drags Eddie in to another dimension. The design of this dimension is clearly influenced by heavy metal album covers, with barren landscapes, skulls, bizarre rock formations, grotesque creatures and druids galore. When Eddie comes to he is attacked by a group of druids, and forced to pick up a nearby axe to defend himself. Combat is fairly simple, pressing the A button (on 360) will cause Eddie to slash his axe and holding the button down will perform a strong attack. After clearing your way through the druids, you find that your guitar has been imbued with magical powers – tapping the X button will make his guitar fire electricity, and holding the button down with cause a pyrotechnic explosion underneath an unsuspecting enemy. You cannot use the magical attacks continuously, as they cause your guitar to overheat. If this happens you will have to wait a few moments before being able to use your guitar again. To round out the basic controls, holding B makes Eddie block, pressing Y interacts with objects, and the left trigger locks on to enemies. After defeating a few waves of Druids, you are taught a ground slam attack, which is executable by pressing X and A together at the same time. Performing this move causes the surroundings to collapse, giving you a way out.
Combat is fast, simple, and Brutal.
Once you make your way outside, you are greeted by the first of the game’s more grotesque enemies, a slim and slender, trap mouthed Nun, who rides to meet you on top of a weird skeletal headless elephant like contraption. Once you dispatch of the Nun, you can jump atop of the skeletal headless elephant like contraption, and ride down a hill comprised entirely of corpses. It is here that you meet your first ally, a young woman named Ophelia, who was searching for the axe you have in your possession. After a brief chat you are informed that these druids are the minions of Lord Doviculous, the big bad of the game. When teamed with Ophelia, you can pick her up by pressing the Y button and hurl her at enemies to perform a powerful attack. Once the area is cleared of enemies you come across the Relic Raiser, a strange shrine that can summon objects if you play a guitar solo in front of it. Pressing Y in front of the Relic Raiser brings up a short section that is similar to GUITAR HERO, or ROCK BAND, where you must press specific buttons in time to the music. Once you complete this task, Eddie is given the parts to create a Hot Rod called The Deuce (AKA The Druid Plow) which you can take control of to drive to the next area.
The Deuce is one of many items you can create thanks to your super roadie abilities.
The final section of the demo involves driving The Deuce down a long road populated with dozens of enemies, which you can flatten, before reaching a boss battle against a gigantic worm. Without spoiling too much, you must use The Deuce to destroy the giant worm by driving in circles around it, avoiding its attacks and running over the vulnerable part of the worm. Once the worm is defeated, Eddie and Ophelia speed off in The Deuce, bringing the demo to it’s conclusion. Overall, the car controls smoothly, with the right trigger accelerating, and left trigger breaking/reversing, and the clicking the left stick will activate a speed boost. The only issue in the boss fight is that the camera locks on to the worm boss, which made steering the car a little unresponsive. However that is just one small issue in an otherwise pleasing experience.
Eddie faces off against one of the many grotesque enemies.
Brutal Legend is due for release on October 16th in Europe on PS3 and 360, with a demo being made publicly available within the next week or so.
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I am looking forward to this game but more for the craziness and humour than the gameplay.
Think I’ll rent it though.
I have the game on preorder, as I feel that Tim Schafer needs our support after the abysmal sales on his last game PSYCHONAUTS. To my shame I must admit to not playing that game, but only becuase no retailer ever had it in stock at the time!