Brutal Legend

First of all this review is not based on the demo, Gameplay for some reason dispatched the game on Tuesday and I received it yesterday, and then promptly spent the entire night playing it and am happy to report it is awesome.
How much you enjoy it though may depend on how much you love metal/hard rock, myself being a metal fan absolutely loved every minute, in the first three missions I finished there were more heavy metal references then I can even remember, some of them obvious, such as the appearance of Ozzy Osbourne which has been one of the highlights so far, and some less obvious such as artwork from metal albums which influence the landscape you drive around.
As to the actual game play, there is nothing new to break the mould, anyone who has played the demo will know what to expect in terms of the hack and slash, the introduction of the RTS side of things is most welcome and comes in slowly throughout the second mission and introduces you to the basics including double team moves you can perform, favourite so far involves the head bangers who you can have form a mosh pit around you, they then proceed to head band every enemy to death.
For the completionists out there this game should take some time as there are loads to collect in the open world, such as statues, and guitar solos which can then be used in a variety of ways, also there are secondary missions, so far the ones I have done have either been racing games or ambush missions, which again were good if not exactly ground breaking.
All in all in you are a metal fan you have to buy this game, you will love spotting all the metal references as well as the awesome soundtrack, which you unlock more of as the game goes on. If you don't like metal I would still highly recommend it as the graphics are great and the game is very entertaining and the development of the RTS side of the game should keep it interesting.

first things 1st i should point out that i am a metalhead. if you are not then immediately take a star off of the overall score

being rather metallically inclined as it were i was obviously salivating at the idea of this game, jack black might have lost some on screen credibility recently (subject to opinion)but his love of heavy metal cannot be denied so in a role like this we can always trust him (if in doubt see tenacious d- album and movie)then of course we have ozzy osbourne, lemmy kilminster and rob halford in guest roles. and finally the soundtrack. (if your not a metalhead skip this section cos you wont care)

THE BEAUTIFUL SOUNDTRACK!!!
this is worthy of a special mention 75 songs approx of pure metal bliss i assure you, covering pretty much everything thats come out in the last 30 years that isnt adolescent whining (the games intro makes a fine point of this trust me). and there is something for every "true" metalhead here, we got slayer, sabbath, priest, skeloton witch, sanctuary, anthrax etc for the more old school: KFMDM, rob zombie, marylin manson for those who wont a bit more modern stuff. and for the more gothic/black metallers we got some cradle of filth, dimmu borgir, enslaved, rotting christ. theres bound to be something for you here. hell even dethklok are on there (MURMAIDER!) to be honest for 75 songs if this game is still £25 then thats probably what youll be paying just for the soundtrack!

anyway back to the game.

graphics are absolutely beautiful. theyve got this really nice cartoony feel to them that is perfect for the feel of the game itself.

the story is a brilliant parody of traditional heavy metal fighting back against sub genres that have mutated it from its purest, and according to the game -greatest - form. its genuinely hilarious at the best of times and entertaining throughout.
the game itself is an absolute beauty to play. the controls are simple, but the game utilises this to allow you to gradually control more and more stuff (namely an army of metal cliches - headbangers for 1. there are 9 total). the game kind of plays like a sandbox rpg - at least in its map. you drive around a relatively large map (not oblivion big but still), whilst your main quest goes on you have a selection of side missions that you can pretty much complete when you feel like.

combat starts as just you with your axe and your er...axe (thats guitar to the rest of you). you hit people with the axe and the guitar works like your standard RPG style magic weapon, electric fire and earth attacks can be utilised from the get go. a little further on the battles take on an almost RTS feel to them (although the creator of the game has stressed that you shouldnt play the game like an RTS or you will lose - and hes right). this is when you reach stage battles. you build a stage, the enemy builds a stage. then you make as big an army as you can to tear it down. its more frantic - and fun - than that sounds

there are some issues with this game however the main one to me was

its pretty short overall - sure there are plenty of side missions but they are very anticlimatical. there really is no motivation (or indeed reward) for doing these missions except fire tributes (basically xp/money depending how you look at it) to make you more capable of completing the main quest - which isnt too hard anyway hence why its short - i finished this in 2 sittings, probably about 9 hours gameplay (i am a bit of a nerd though- i write reviews afterall). that said i was more than happy to play through it again in "brutal" mode so it does have replay value. the only real reason to play through it again is just that it was really enjoyable. and to say you did it on brutal (achievement obviously)

another problem (especially given the previous issue) is that this game tries to cram A LOT into this short space. youve got elements of your standard action game, driving (both of the racing and of the racing with guns variety), RTS (kind of),RPG style customisation, hell even a bit of guitar hero-ness is thrown in both on the map and in combat (FACE MELTEEEEERRRR -itll make sense) the only reason this mattered to me is that i found the stage battles got considerably harder towards the end in a very quick learning curve. i suddenly went from being perfectly capable of battle to feeling like i didnt have a clue what was going on. you get there in the end but this is a frustrating occurence and one that could have been avoided.

and the final problem is when there are so many elements to a game its really hard to keep a review from getting undigestibly long! sorry

the above said i have to say that the fact that there are a lot of elements to this do keep it feeling fresh and nearly always enjoyable. one of my personally favourite games on my 360. defintitely worth a go. unless youre a metalhead in witch case youd be a fool not to try this game out. this is a game made out of sheer love and respect for the greatest music ever made and it shows! METAL THRASHING MAD? indeed

Brutal Legend had a lot of hype behind it and a lot of my friends have said its fantastic but I cant help but feel disappointed. Do not by any means think that I am saying its a bad game because its not but it just doesn't live up to expectations.

I usually do very detailed reviews of games, so if you are looking for a more detailed review you might want to look else where because I am only going into why it disappointed me. The game starts out as a opened world hack and slash game, you drive around in a beautifully detailed world, which is greatly themed around heavy metal music and the first couple of hours are great fun. You axe your way through hordes of enemies, take down a giant spider and drive around in your car that you later upgrade. But very suddenly, a couple of hours in, it suddenly turns into an real time strategy game. By that I mean you have to build your stage, protect your resources and build troops and command them. I don't dislike these missions but its not what I signed on for. After playing the demo, the game is portrayed as a hack and slash and even though you can still fight while looking after your troops but it kind of took the flow of combat away as you had to babysit your army. Before you buy this game, make sure you preview these levels online, maybe on Youtube because if these levels aren't your thing, you will lose interest after an hour BUT if you do like these levels, you are in for a great time. I still gave the game 3 stars because as I said, I still don't think the games bad, I just feel it was ill advertised.

There are also mini games which are not very entertaining. This is where I explain the title of this review. There are racing mini games (which I actually really enjoyed), beat em up mini games and shooter mini games. When playing these mini games I couldn't help but feel like the developers where looking down a sheet of game genres and attempting to tick them off. They even have a small guitar hero replica that you need to repeat every time you want to summon a vehicle or raise a relic, just encase they couldn't tick off the music genre box.

The writing is also a slight let down, it was very hyper to be hilariously written and while it does have great characters and Jack Blacks voice acting is A*, it wasn't that funny. This is a minor complaint and doesn't make the game bad but with Jack Blacks reputation I was expecting it to be a little bit funnier but as voice acting goes its very good.

Overall the game is good, its beautiful, well written and has a large variety of different game types that keeps you interested throughout but as the mini games get very repetitive and the main missions stick very much to the RTS genre once it changes over it didn't deliver what I was expecting and hence I give it 3 stars. This is my own personal opinion and I am not saying this should put you off in any way, this was just a warning encase you were looking for something different like me.