Have a guitar-thrashing, head-banging good time with Brutal Legend, writes FAIZUL AZIM SAIFUL.
- Source: Wikipedia
Brutal Legend PS3, Xbox 360 LIVE in a world where rock comes alive, where you ride in a brutal hot rod, where heavy metal chords, riffs, strums and solos can kill, heal and inspire those around you, and where head banging is definitely good for you. Welcome to Brutal Legend.
Your guide/hero is a man who is never seen at a rock concert, a man who works behind the scenes with ninja stealth-like abilities, and who can make metal musicians seem like gods in front of their screaming disciples — The Roadie.
Eddie Riggs is a Roadie who dreams of going back to the early ’70s where music meant something.
During a gig one night while Eddie is reminiscing on that lost age, a member of the new-age metal band slips and falls. Eddie, however, manages to save him. Unfortunately, the stage collapses and Eddie is left in the rubble.
When a few drops of Eddie’s blood fall on his skull-shaped belt buckle, it summons Ormagoden, a fiery beast of the netherworld. This beast teleports Eddie to a world where humanity has been enslaved by demons.
But rather than being a world painted with depressing scenery and brooding hellspawn, the setting is one truly awesome rock concert.
And as if that’s not enough, you find a really brutal looking guitar which is actually your primary weapon throughout the game.
Playing the guitar in front of a rock statue gives you the Deuce, which helps you blast all the creatures running around while you go from mission to mission.
Your first task is to rescue some workers from a mine. You are actually building an army by freeing these fellow rockers. These poor souls have been sentenced to a lifetime of breaking rocks with their heads (and in the process developing ridiculously thick necks from all the head banging) and that’s when you realise the humour that’ll follow through every single aspect of the game.
It is not surprising that Eddie is voiced by Jack Black, comedian, hardcore rock fan and member of the band Tenacious D, and Tim Schafer, a computer game designer whose funny side showed in games such as The Secret of Monkey Island.
From here, the story continues the trend of humour and excellent writing including cameos from some of the greatest rockers of our time.
The story is accentuated by the excellent voices of Lemmy Kilmister, Ozzy Osbourne and Black. Others such as Lita Ford, Jennifer Hale and Tim Curry are outstanding too.
The gameplay’s built around the two mighty weapons — an appropriately large axe that you can swing around to dice your enemies up, and an electric guitar that can send shock waves through them.
The show-stopping part of the game is the guitar itself. At any point in the game, you can whip out your guitar and play a quick solo, which has a number of effects.
Some solos can be used to raise hidden relics for new guitar solos or summon troops to you, while other solos can buff up your troops or cause harm to your enemies.
Activating a guitar solo is as easy as tapping the right face buttons in time to the screen prompts (similar to Guitar Hero). While you’ll initially see this game as an action adventure, the game surprises you with a real-time strategy jolt when you enter your first big battle.
First a stage rises up off the ground and then you’re told that the large glowing green pits around you comprises the souls of your fans and that you’ll need to build merchandise booths around to serve as your resource.
Once you’ve enough resources, you can summon your army and order it to attack, follow, stay or guard a structure much like any other real-time strategy game but this time you get in on the action too.
The game does a great job of easing you into the more complicated stuff such as controlling individual units, and using their specific abilities eventually.
When Eddie becomes a demon, you’ll be able to control the entire battle from a bird’s eye view, and the game really takes on the RTS vibe.
The main campaign will run around six to eight hours depending on your level of skill.
Brutal Legend really shines through with its visuals. Schafer’s unique perspective on character design is the most inspired to date — one army of head bangers that have exaggerated neck muscles and sport an almost Neanderthal-like appearance.
Some of the areas are so well detailed and constructed, it feels like they were pulled straight out of a big-budget gory animated film.
The audio accentuates this heavy metal title with hundreds of rock numbers to cycle through
