Sour Grunt Productions

[center]Brutal Legend

Key Points:
Good:

Awesome Graphics
Beautiful environment-Very Detailed
Great collection of metal songs for the gigantic soundtrack
Entertaining Cutscenes
Cool Main Menu

Bad:

Short Single Player Campaign
Multiplayer was very confusing

Backstory/Into:
In Brutal Legend, you take on the role of Eddie Riggs, a roadie of a poser band, who gets treated like he's not worth but two cents. Another drudging concert is going on for Eddie, who is disgusted by their music, a mixture of pop and metal. During the concert, a band member climbs on a loose piece of the set, it breaks, and he is left dangling there, with no way to get up. Eddie steps in to rescue him, and brings him to safety, but just his luck, the whole set collapses on him; leaving him unconscious. As blood trickles onto his enchanted belt, an animal from hell erupts from the Earth, destroying everything in the stadium, and bringing Eddie to an alternate world.

Story Mode
My first impressions of the Story mode were just jaw-dropping. Brutal Legend has amazing graphics, that are a bit cartoony, but still give the feel that you're actually in the game. As I quickly progressed through the "tutorial", I got a taste of the fighting. It was a lot better than most games of this sort. The controls are very simple, pressing A to slash with your Axe, and X to control your Guitar's attacks. With different ways that the enemies died; such as being decapitated and having their legs cut off; the fighting scenes were always fun. A feature that I thought was actually good to have, was that the Guitar became "Overheated" when you overused it, to prevent you from sitting there and unloading with your Guitar from a far distance. The next major thing in the story mode, was the use of "Solos". There were many different solos that you can unlock throughout the story, and compose of Eddie playing an awesome guitar solo, while you press the corresponding buttons on the screen. These spells did things from melting your enemies faces off, to summoning your chariot, the Duece (AKA The Druid Plow). The driving in this game was very entertaining, you can free-roam the whole world in your car, and access the metal forge; where you upgrade your arsenal of weapons and your car; splatter creatures, and complete side-missions. Side missions got boring very quickly, as they were usually the same thing each time, but it was good for a break from the story at times. The story continued on as you slayed monsters, completed quests, fought bosses, and eventually saved the world in which you were dropped into.

Multiplayer
Well, there are a lot of things to go over about Brutal Legend's multiplayer mode. My first impressions of the multiplayer mode; called Stage Battle; was just utter confusion. Even after watching the tutorial video, the mode was very confusing to me. After a little bit of messing around, I figured out how to play, and completed a first game against the AI. The way I would explain this mode, is like a First-Person command and conquer game. You build up your army by "spending" fans, and then attack certain posts that you can build merchant booths on, to get more fans. Eventually you get closer to your enemy, wipe out their resources, and then destroy them. I didn't find the multiplayer mode satisfying, as it wasn't very fun for me to play.

Other
Some other things about this game that I loved that didn't fit in those categories.
First of all, the soundtrack was by-far the best soundtrack for a game, ever, if you enjoy metal music that is. It contains everything from Black Sabbath and Slayer to Motorhead and Anthrax. Also, the game's menu was visually pleasing, as it was a record and case, and had a different option on each part of the record and case. The graphics for the game were awesome, and the environment was very metal-inspired.

Recommend?
I would definitely recommend this game to everyone. It's a really fun and relaxed game, with a great fighting system, Story, and Storyline. There aren't very many flaws in my opinion, unless you don't like metal. If so, you can just turn off the music, and listen to some of your own. I suggest checking this game out, it's definitely worth it to rent it and check it out.


That was my first review for a game, ever. So tell me what you thought about it and what I should improve on/cover. Thanks.[/center]

I heard this was awesome... I want to get it, but I got Borderlands already. :/

Also, I heard it was like the ultimate 'stoner' game. lol I doubt it, BioShock was pretty trippy.

Eh, I wouldn't consider it a stoner game. It's based around metal and everything, but the environment is a little trippy at times..

I would hope its a metal-based game if it has Jack Black. I really wanna play it either way.

I was wondering how a game like this gets a storyline. I've seen some videos for it and it looks amazingly wierd. Like Wierd wierd. Grif wierd.

Nothing is ever Grif weird. Brutal Legends is gonna be amizingly good. I want to get it. Alot.

Awesome? I heard this game was quite average.

I might rent it much later, but as of now I'm not that interested in this game. I think I was before, but I quickly got over any hype from a Giantbomb Hands-On or an X-Play special and took the game for what it was in comparison to better titles coming out.

As for advice on your reviews, how about a score to wrap the reveiw up? Also, remember to introduce new and meaningful ideas to your reviews. Give examples on specific areas of achievement and examples of bad areas. I think you pretty much covered it, but just remember to be very specific and to generally introduce a new idea and spin to your review, if you understand me. We need more reasons to read your reviews, so don't be afraid to add a lot of reasoning and ideas that are unique to you in your reviews.