The story continues, with a shocking twist that will change Tim’s life forever.

(Update 9:39 am:)

So I purchased Brutal Legend last week when it was released, and I just beat it yesterday. I had been pretty pumped for the game for awhile because it was created by Tim Schafer, the same mind behind on of my all-time favorites, Psychonauts.

Basically, the premise is that a roadie (voiced by Jack Black) is transported to a strange alternate-history type place where the entire world is basically like a heavy metal album cover, and it powered by rock.

I actually considered heavy metal to be the only genre of music I completely refused to listen to, so I was a little worried about playing an entire game based around the stuff. I was actually quite pleasantly surprised to find that “metal” wasn’t all just garbled screaming, as I had always thought, but rather more of something somewhat just rock-ish.

So anyways, the game kind of feels like one of the brainscapes from Psychonauts, just expanded into an entire open world that you can drive around in your crazy hot rod called the “Druid Plow” or “Duece.”

I was somewhat uneasy going into the game, while incredibly excited about it, I wasn’t super thrilled about playing a brawler for the entire game. While whacking things with your axe and bringing down lighting by playing your guitar was amusing, it wasn’t anything incredible. I was liking the game alright, and all was fine.

Then I fought in my first stage battle.

And suddenly the game was completely awesome.

Stage battles are like a weird real time strategy-action hybrid. You power your army by collecting resources in the form of “fans,” and then you build different units of troops which you then order around. The object is to destroy your enemy’s stage, while they try to destroy yours.

Unlike most RTS games, the real focus is not about splitting up your army to accomplish specific tasks. Typically you keep them massed in a single unit and march with them, fighting on the ground, and teaming up with them to perform special attacks. It’s a light RTS experience merged with action.

I would like to comment that I am actually not a fan of RTS games. I have only played one, Company of Heroes, and the only reason I played that was because I could play it co-op with Noah, who is really into strategy games. It involved a lot of me chipping away at the enemy while Noah’s army steamrolled them. Noah has given me two other RTS games to play, which I still have yet to play. I have some kind of block against these games, I simply cannot play them.

So keep that in mind when I say that the stage battles were the best part of Brutal Legend. Even after beating single-player, I am still playing stage battles against the AI, trying to figure everything out enough to maybe try it out online.

Overall, Brutal Legend is awesome, and Double Fine does not disappoint.

-Nathan

\m/