The Good: That which is touched by Jack Black so often turns to gold.
The Bad: Potential for a big old game of cliche Tetris.
The Ugly: So. Many. Demons.
Double Fine head man Tim Schafer has been working on Brutal Legend, a game for all of those who ever wanted to live life in the cover of a Cannibal Corpse record. Or Iron Maiden record. Or pretty much any record by any metal band ever. It’s a funny old beast, metal. One girl’s face-melting Eurothrash is another boy’s East Bay beerbong sleepy-time. That’s about the standard of metaphor you can expect from me right now, just so you know. What I’m trying to say is building a fantasy world from the popular semiotics of heavy metal is no easy task – especially when you have to attract customers across two platforms. The game is being developed for the 360 and PS3.
Brutal Legend follows the life and times of roadie Eddie Riggs, voiced by the irreverent Jack Black. Eddie is preparing a guitar for the stage one night when he cuts himself and bleeds on his belt buckle, which turns out to be cursed. This act flings him into a parallel dimension – one populated by the demons of metal. With teleportation complete, and a pretty dire situation unfolding around you, you’ll control Eddie through claiming the mighty battle axe – the Seperator – and getting about the general business of taking it to the populace of this strange place.
As well as your axe, you can also call on Eddie’s guitar. A regular 6-string back on Earth, but here something of a magical wand. Past the teeth-gnashing and hair-tearing button mashing of your average dungeon crawler (and this is certainly how Brutal Legend looks) you’ll use Clementine to strum out powerful musical attacks that will slay your evil foe by the hundreds.
As if this wasn’t enough, you’ll also be able to tool around in a hot rod called the Deuce. Smashing down your enemies becomes a cinch at the helm of this pimped out beast, and will add another dimension to your adventure.
Now apart from getting home, Eddie’s main motivation in the game is to save the world’s human inhabitants, who are enslaved by the metal overlords. The leader of a resistance movement – Ophelia – comes on board to be Eddie’s love interest and partner in awesomeness. Together, you will be able to perform team attacks and access parts of the world closed off to Eddie alone. Ophelia also happens to be a fan of the Deuce, so she’ll happily sit beneath your arm as you speed around the landscape.
Much is being made of Schafer’s suggestion that the world is about 64 square kilometers, which obviously makes for a pretty big place to explore. Another hot topic on forums and among this industry’s hard-working pundits both pro and amateur is Jack Black’s supposedly side-splitting voiceover. The Tenacious D front man, Hollywood bigshot and star of the heavy-metal inspired film The Pick of Destiny has reportedly done an excellent job in lending his style to the game. Brutal Legend is hopefully the richer for his involvement, and it certainly seems that it isn’t some shallow hook used by the developer’s marketing team.
The graphical style looks to be pulled directly from the vast library of heavy metal and rock art. The world will be a collection of red skies, desolate temples, chains, swords and hideous creatures. All that adds up to a frightfully colourful, diverse… and perhaps just plain frightful, gaming experience. Imagine taking on the Sauron-like villain gracing the cover of Dio’s Holy Diver. Scary, right?
This game, in something close to final build, ought to be on show at E3, so we can expect an update from the NZGamer.com contingent heading to LA then. No matter where you look online, the outlook for Brutal Legend is resoundingly positive, so keep an eye out for final release dates closer to the end of this year and make sure there’s a slice of your bank account sectioned off especially.
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