Brütal Legend

With the power of music...
....and an axe

I played this game quite awhile ago but I wanted to spend a few moments to talk about it here.

This game is actually really good.  It looks like a game that's trying to cash in on Jack Black's name but the development effort for this game is full throttle.  Despite being from 2009, the graphics/art style look really good.  The game is also open world with plenty of side quests.  Jack Black can also travel around the world with his car that can be upgraded with better armor, speed, and rocket launchers.  Other than Jack Black, the game also has well-known metalheads voice acting as themselves such as Ozzy Osbourne and Lemmy from Motörhead.

The game is also hilarious.  Jack Black has some pretty funny lines so if you're a Jack Black fan, you should definitely pick this game up.

Also, fantastic soundtrack.  Any metalhead will be very pleased with the music in this game.

The best part of this game is definitely the gameplay.  For a game that could have easily been a cash in on the Jack Black name, the gameplay is incredibly unique.  In fact, it's so unique that I don't think I've ever played another game that plays like this.  The core gameplay is essentially a hybrid between an RTS and an Action/Adventure.

Weird?  Yeah, it kind of is.  But it's weird in a good way.  Essentially, the premise of the game is that Jack Black is like this metal demi-god or something that has been summoned to this music oriented world to save it from destruction.  In order to do that, Jack Black has to lead armies of metal related characters to defend his stage setup from fantastical enemies and destroy the evil stage setup so that they can't put on their destructive music (or something).  There's also strategic points on the map that will help you in spawning more soldiers by increasing your fan-base so you will want to capture those and defend them from the enemy as well.

In this way, it plays exactly like most RTSs but during the battle you are also controlling Jack Black who can do various attacks with his battle axe and electric guitar.  It controls pretty similarly to Jack and Daxter or Crash Bandicoot so imagine playing as one of those characters while playing an RTS.  It's about as cool as it sounds.

The only thing about this game that I would say is lackluster is the final boss fight.  If I remember correctly, I think I beat the final boss in one try without taking any damage.  Granted, I was playing it on the Normal difficulty but considering that the game was moderately difficult before that point, I was unpleasantly surprised at the ease of the final boss.  Without spoiling too much, the final boss is a one-on-one fight that has a very predictable pattern that you can exploit.  It was rather lackluster.

Other than that though, this game is a great pickup and you should be able to get it for pretty cheap (probably $5 or less).  So if you spot it, you shouldn't hesitate to pick it up.


Brutal Legend Pic:  http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/83/BrutalLegendCover.jpg/256px-BrutalLegendCover.jpg