Heavy Metal lore is a theme which no game (to my knowledge) has yet to tackle. Although several rhythm games have included songs from the genre, there really hasn’t been a proper interpretation of the ridiculousness associated with it (heavy metal). Brutal Legend nails this aspect through beautiful aesthetics and creative character design, although utterly fails to deliver any kind of functional game play.

Story: Brutal Legend begins with roadie and die-hard metal head Eddie Riggs (voiced by Jack Black) preparing the stage for the band he is touring with.  During the show, an on-stage blunder forces him to step into the spotlight and save the day. Unfortunately, this leads to Eddie’s death. Consequently, Eddie’s death magically opens a portal to the “Age of Metal” – a world entirely based on heavy metal lore. Shortly after his arrival, Eddie learns of Emperor Deviculous – a powerful tyrant wreaking havoc on the land – and a small but determined resistance vainly fighting for their freedom.

Personally, I love Jack Black; even though he’s been playing the same over-the-top character for, well, pretty much his entire career. However, those who take offense to Mr. Black will be pleased to hear that he is quite subdued. Eddie Riggs actually feels like a character unto himself, while still conveying Jack Black’s trademark humour. The story Double Fine has crafted is well worth the 6 or so hours it’ll take to complete, and may very well be the primary reason for slugging through the campaign (more on that shortly). 8.5/10

Presentation / Sound: For the sake of this review, I have decided to include sound and presentation under one category.  This is because the two complement each other so well that it’s nearly impossible to think about one without the other springing to mind. The game opens with a clever quasi-meta cut scene featuring the real life Mr. Black perusing a record store. From there, an equally meta, yet far more clever, menu system emerges. Once the game actually begins the first thing you’ll notice are the facial animations. Every exaggerated expression perfectly conveys the emotion of any character at any given time. In particular, the caricature-like nature of Eddie Riggs adds an appropriate extra touch of humour. Once the world begins to reveal itself, fans of heavy metal will immediately feel right at home. Game director Tim Schaffer has been quoted as saying that he wanted every landmark in Brutal Legend to look as though it could be on the cover a metal album. Needless to say, the man did not lie. As one explores the world of Brutal Legend, one will inevitably come across everything from vast pits of fire with ominous spiral towers lurking above, to giant stone swords and skulls. Even character and enemy design is intended to parody metal in some way (more on that in the gameplay section).

When it comes to music, Brutal Legend delivers once again. It goes without saying that if you do not enjoy metal, then this soundtrack will do absolutely nothing for you, although neither will the rest of the game for that matter. Featured within are rock legends such as Metallica, Black Sabbath, Three Inches of Blood, and much, much more. In addition, the audio cues at the start of any given mission are spot on, and effectively get your adrenaline pumping. All of this goes a long way to immerse the player in tale of metal inspired badass-ery. 9/10

Game play: At first, Brutal Legend appears to be a mere hack and slash adventure game, while after about an hour of play time it reveals it’s open world mission based structure. However, neither of these are an accurate indication of what Brutal Legend truly is.  Beyond the rather deceptive introduction, Brutal Legend reveals its’ streamlined real-time strategy structure.

               Right off the bat, you’ll be cutting up enemies with a giant axe, as well as shocking with your electric guitar. These are your basic close quarters and ranged attacks. Luckily, you’ll almost always be fighting with one other, if not several, teammates whom you’ll be able to team up with for more powerful manoeuvres. These attacks are character specific, meaning there are a good variety of animations to see, which in turn goes a long way in keeping the basic combat fresh. Shortly, you’ll come across a statue, with guitar tab engraved on it. These monuments teach Eddie guitar solos, which can do anything from summon his car, to melt the face of any opponents surrounding you. When you want to perform a solo, you’ll need to choose one from a radial menu, and then perform a short rhythm mini game. While, this is cool to look at, Eddie is still vulnerable to damage during this time. Because you lose direct control over character movement, I found I was performing these solos less and less in order to stay alive. This is a major problem, because the game encourages you to perform as many solos as you can as often as possible. It feels at odds with itself to make solos inconvenient to perform, yet have them be so crucial to your victory.

               Soon, you’ll assemble you main method of transportation, a car aptly titled the Druid Plow. This enables you to properly begin exploring the open world Double Fine has crafted. Although there are dozens of side missions scattered across the land, few of them are unique. For the most part, there are only two types of side mission – a one on one race, and a short battle in a tiny area against a limited number of opponents. In addition, there are several types of collectible strew about. There are statues to find, monuments to see, and guitar solos to collect, Although the monuments are cool to look at, none of them are interactive, and a purely there for you viewing pleasure. Furthermore, the only benefit to tracking down all the statues is a small currency bonus for each one, making the only worthwhile collectible the guitar solos. But even so, I only found about half of them, and only needed to use 3 or 4 on a regular basis.

Any currency you collect can be used to purchase weapon, car upgrades, as well as additional combos. The only really interesting aspect of this is that the shopkeeper is modeled after and voiced by Ozzy Osbourne, who is perhaps his most coherent ever.

               While the simple hack and slash game play and open world structure is at the very least functional, the same cannot be said for real-time strategy battles, which comprise the majority of the experience. The basic framework involves moving Eddie around to various geysers, and summoning merchandise towers. These provide you with fans, your resource. From there, you’ll amass an army, and then attack an enemy base. All resource collection has been virtually eliminated, although it will be necessary to commandeer neutral or even enemy controlled geysers in order to gain enough fans to build more powerful units. Commanding units, too, has been significantly streamlined. The only commands at your disposal are attack, move, and hold position. However, you cannot divide your army into squads, and can only control units who are in your immediate vicinity. This means that in order to control units, you have to be constantly moving Eddie back and forth across the map. This wouldn’t be a problem, if the game didn’t place such heavy emphasis on having you be an active part of the battle, performing solos and double team attacks. Due to the fact that your units are so fallible on their own, having to leave the battlefield for even a minute can completely change the tide of battle in your opponents favour. Also, because the controls are so streamlined, there’s no way to have specific units, attack specific enemies. Essentially, there’s no desirable control method over your units.

               Once you finish the campaign, it becomes painfully apparent that the intended purpose is to serve as a tutorial for the multiplayer mode. But because I found the real-time strategy battles to be so weak, I found the multiplayer to be entirely undesirable. 4/10

Brutal Legend works very well on a non interactive level. Even though I thought the hack and slash and open world qualities to be acceptable, the real-time strategy battles feel basically broken. While it’s extremely entertaining to watch, more often than not it isn’t fun to play, making Brutal Legend hard to recommend, even for life-long heavy metal fans. Overall 6/10