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

Bungie’s “Last” Halo title Halo Reach was announced about half way through the development cycle of Halo: ODST. A prequel to the original Halo: Combat Evolved, it was also promised as a beta pack-in with the purchase of Halo: ODST. On NeoGaf, a thread appeared containing some Halo: Reach screen leaks. These are extremely sketchy shaky-cam shots, think rednecks taking pictures of “Bigfoot” quality.

(NOTE: These are FAR from official, please take it with a grain of salt.)

Source: NeoGaf

This is a great tool to use to introduce and educate yourself in video game development. Epic is offering tools and tutorials for users to learn how to use the engine.

Oh and it comes with a demo of Unreal Tournament 3

Download and info here

Anyway, I highly recommend you hit up www.swtor.com ASAP.  It is said to be the game that will “kill” World of Warcraft. I’m willing to sacrifice my time for one of the greatest sagas of all time.

Source: www.swtor.com

Daiiiim grl.

Borderlands looks so cool, I’ve looked at everything on the internet relating to it, both on and off Gearbox’s website.  I can’t wait to play it!  On the other hand, I can wait until they fix some of these bugs, glitches, and just plain old problems they have had since release.  Buying it now may end up feeling like your testing the game before it is actually ready.  Let’s hope that’s not the case.

Now they have fixed most of these issues, however I would wait until they themselves guarantee you all systems are go.  The best way to find out when that is, is to follow this thread on their community forum.

Check it out and see you in the regions of Pandora:

Gearbox’s Known Issues Status Update

It's do... or die...

When you attempt to join an online match in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, whilst in a party, you will be prompted with a DO OR DIE message asking you to leave your party chat and use the in-game chat.  Now personally, I like to chat with my buds playing a different game while I watch the blood of my enemies seep from their lifeless corpses, but with this system implemented you will be subjected to hardcore, talk to your teammates not your friends gameplay.  Love it or hate it, apparently that’s the way the cookie crumbles…

Me, after hearing about this.

Source: www.ripten.com

UPDATE: This blocker will only be enabled in certain game modes, I am going out on a limb and assuming the Hardcore playlists, and most likely Search and Destroy where cheating via party chat would be more relevant as opposed to Headquarters or Team Deathmatch.

Now, we have (also from mw2blog.com) the weapons list for Modern Warfare 2.

Assault Rifles

• - M4A1
• - FAMAS
• - SCAR-H
• - TAR-21
• - FN FAL
  
• - M16A4
• - ACR
• - FN 2000
  
• - AK-47

Sniper Rifles

• - Cheytac M-200 Intervention
• - Barrett .50 cal
• - WA2000
  
• - M21 EER
  

Sub-Machine Guns

• - MP5K
• - UMP .45
• - TDI Vector
  
• - P90
• - Mini Uzi
  

Machine Pistols

• - PP-2000
• - G10
• - M93 Raffica
  
• -TMP

Shotguns

• - SPAS 12
  
• - AA-12
• - Armsel Striker 12 Guage
• - Ranger
• - M1014
• - Model 1887
  

Light/Heavy Machine Guns

• - L86 LSW
  
• - RPD
• - M64
• - Aug HBAR
  
• - M240

Grenade/Rocket Launchers

• - AT4 HS
  
• - Thumper
• - Stinger
• - Javelin
• - RPG-7

Hand Guns

• - USP .45
• - Colt .44 Magnum
  
• - M9
• - Desert Eagle

Gun Attatchments

• - Red Dot Sight
• - Heartbeat Sensor
• - ACOG
• - Silencer
• - EOTech Sight
• - Thermal Scope
• - Shotgun (Master Key)
  
• - Extended Clip
• - FMJ
• - Akimbo

Riot Shield

• - Riot Shield (Primary Weapon)
  

Melee

• - Combat Knife

Equipment

• - Frag Grenade
• - Semtex (Sticky Grenade)
• - Throwing Knifes
  
• - Tactical Insertion
  
• - Blast Shield
• - Claymore Mines
  
• - C4

Camouflage

• - Desert
• - Arctic
• - Woodland
• - Digital
• - Urban
• - Blue Tiger
• - Red Tiger
• - Fall

Once again, I will stress that these leaks are due to, and being confirmed by Xbox 360 Pirate users. When Kotaku contacted Infinity Ward’s Robert Bowling for an official statement, he released a tweet reading: “Can’t confirm nor deny any leaks for #MW2. Official stance is to just wait and discover the awesome yourself on November 10th.”

Source: mw2blog

3 Kills — UAV
4 Kills — Care Package
4 Kills — Counter UAV
5 Kills — Sentry Gun
5 Kills — Predator Missile
6 Kills — Precision Airstrike
7 Kills — Strike
7 Kills — Attack Heli
8 Kills — Emergency Airdrop
9 Kills — Pave Low
9 Kills — Stealth Bomber
11 Kills — Chopper Gunner
11 Kills — AC-130
15 Kills — EMP
25 Kills — Tactical Nuke

Yes, you read that correctly. A nuke. (Hypocritical in  a way, considering MW1 was a statement against the horror and world-ending potential of Nuclear Warfare….) Shenanigans you say? YouTube says differently.

*UPDATE*

Various Xbox 360 Pirates have been confirming every single kill streak listed

Source: GamePex