Brütal Legend - Page 11

It's a busy control scheme but it works. And trust me, as someone who LOATHES real time strategy most of the time, the ease with which I got not only sucked into but excited to do the RTS battles in this game is a testament to how much they get right here.

Also, RE: the axes. I was kinda disappointed with the lightning axe too, but that thing is a godsend for the last stage (when Doviculus raises the three-headed monster), both the stage battle and the last boss.

Speaking of which, that's twice now Painkiller has turned out to be the perfect way to end a game.

I was kinda disappointed that my favorite songs in BL were Rock Band songs - Painkiller and Electric Eye. I was hoping to find more to widen my horizons. Even the Megadeth songs weren't as good as the ones in RB... And hearing Through the Fire and Flames come on just made me groan.

Heh. I kinda like the "RTS" bit. It's that new breed of RTS, like Dawn of War where it's about essentially capturing a spot and throwing reinforcements at it. It's very busy, perhaps a little fiddly - but it's not something I hate.

Plus it's not like the entire game's shifted into an RTS or anything. It's just one mission type.

The face melter solo is absolutely charming!

I'm just going to trade this for Forza 3 on Friday whether I've finished it or not.

Yeah, it'd be difficult to resist that. I think i'll finish it, but only because it's easily better than everything else lying in my rental pile.

I've not even hit up Uncharted 2 yet - and not long before MW2 either. Damn it.

I'm upgrading the RTS elements in this game from "mis-step" to "war crime".

I adore this game, flaws and all, and the flaws aren't that bad.

A totally original game for a lame seen it before racing game?

The RTS stuff isn't TERRIBLE, but I'd like to see where this might have gone had they just stuck with the open-world action formula.

Well otherwise I'll just have a game sitting here that has zero replay value as opposed to one I know that I'll enjoy and play for a long time.

And originality only goes so far, playability and fun are more important to me.

At any rate, I beat it, so add "is extremely short" to the list of this game's deficiencies.

Actually, I say ditch both the open world and RTS elements. This would have made a pretty great hack and slash game with RPG elements to it.

Oh god, YES.

Well, I've thought about what really bothers me about the game, and I think I've hit upon it. The entire single player story campaign (which is very short and features one of the most truncated final acts I've ever seen) is little more than an extended tutorial for the multiplayer. Once you get past the giant spider, every mission that doesn't involve escorting that fucking bus from one place to another, or that isn't an actual battle, just introduces a unit and basically shows you what its double team attack is. Okay, here's the bass guitar guy, his double team is the stun note. Okay, here's Roadies, you can stealth with them and they've got that sonic blast. Okay, here's the fire baron, okay here's the beast rider, okay here's the Rock Crusher and that's it. You're done.

There's just so many missed opportunities, so many missions that could have been cool but weren't. You go back to Bladehenge after the three month jump, and it's all perverted and evil, and.. then you watch a cutscene and leave and never go back there. It just gets un-evil after the truly uninspiring final boss fight against a demon guy you've seen for a grand total of five minutes up to that point in the game. You go to a place called THE SCREAMING WALL, which is an awesome cliff made completely of amps and speakers, and all the way down to the base, you're told how dangerous it is, how you'll soon learn why they call it THE SCREAMING WALL and how deadly the seagulls are. Then.. you watch a cutscene of Eddie getting a speaker and trudge back up the way you came. The game just promises all this epic confrontation and doesn't follow through on any of it. There's hints of it here and there, like the giant cathedral monster, but even that is just "toss as many units as possible at these targets and drive around a bit".

Giving up on this game. I have to return it tomorrow but it just the same shit (and not well working shit) over and over. It's cute to see the different aspects of the Metal world but I'm never playing multiplayer and I'd rather just spend five minutes looking up how the story ends than invest more time.

I'm really glad I didn't buy this, which paradoxically saddens me.

Part of me is glad I did, if only to provide some token monetary support to a developer I still think deserves it, but part of me is also really glad I'll be rid of it by Friday.

I'm interested to hear Alex's thoughts on the game, though. Any plans for a review?

I know he has a huge backlog.

Pretty much where I'm at. And not having Demon's Souls to tackle in its stead is killing me.

The real shame is that this could have been very good. It really could have.

When I defeated the Drowned in that big battle where you first get the Rock Crusher, I was SURE that I had a good bit of not only game, but also story left to go. I was dumbstruck when every plot thread was loosely tied up in a single talky cutscene followed by two completely un-climactic missions. I don't expect the utter pinnacle of gameplay from Schafer, but I do expect a story with a real resolution and arc. That's what let me down the most.

Im still paying full price for this game and Borderlands when they arrive here, and moved my trade in money to COD:MW2.
Even if its somehwat flawed, i'd rather pay fo originality these days; plus, i got "Psychonaouts" at bargain price, so I guess it all balances out.

I'm just about there. I didn't realize I was so close to the end. Christ what a short game.

Yeah, I was amazed, too. I figured it was just the end of the second act.

NOPE! Doviculus just shows up, explains Eddie's past, and then you fight him.

It sucks that I'm going to end up not buying this. I mean I wasn't thrilled with the stylisation of the game, but I really, really, wanted Tim Schaffer to have a win. But as someone not particularly enamoured by the metal scene anyways I doubt I'm going to find anything of worth in this as a purchase. I might go download Psychonauts off of Live and play that through again.

FUCK. This isn't helping my lack of desire to finish the game. Still gonna finish it, though.

Furthermore, aside from Mangus, the jokes dry up almost completely in the second half of the game, and get replaced with a lot of really serious plot stuff, and it just becomes kind of a drag on that front too.

Lionwhite was a potentially great villain, they should have done more with him.

He was the only one that really got any significant screen time or development. Even, and I'll go ahead and black it out so as not to ruin it for anybody that DOES still want to play, Ophelia gets pretty shortchanged as a villain, and then there's a lame switcheroo at the very end anyway.

It seems like all the development in this game went more towards putting the world and the backstory together, and very little on much else.

Agreed, but they should have kept him in and either made him lead the Drowning Doom (just to see how'd he act in that element) or join up with Ironheade and have that interplay.

I know they didn't bc it would have fucked the multiplayer, which is sad.

If the developers can improve on the flaws, this would have a great sequel.

And man those reaper horses are a bitch to find.

That bit with the screaming wall baffled me. The seagulls never did anything to me to justify killing them, they just sorta flocked - and I discovered I could maul them with sound. But they never turned into any kind of threat.

I've not even touched the multiplayer, nor do I want to - i'm not that confident in my control over the RTS elements.

The entire game's conceptually great. It's just a shame I can see where this thing was meant to be entirely an RTS from the start because that idea's even worse.

Grim Fandango has aged well though!

I think that feedback builds based on their cries and you die if you don't kill them. But, they aren't particularly hard so it never got to that point.

I can't really argue with some of Brad's points, but at the same time I think they bothered me less than him.

Yes each battle introduces a new unit, and yes it feels like it's a tutorial for multiplayer. This isn't unusal for RTS games War III and Starcraft campaigns operate with one new unit per battle (Of course you get a new campaign per faction)

And yes it is a bit too short. I would have felt a bit more satisfied with 3 or 4 other stage battles with some interesting strategic twists.

What did bother me was the strategies that may be effective in multiplayer weren't really necessary in single player. Ultimately the strategy of "get 40 units, skill up your stage, refresh units as they die" is a bit too effective and straightforward.

So it's fair to say that they put too much effort into a multiplayer game, when the 'hook' for the game (the Heavy Metal asthetic) was much more at home in a single player game.

I actually liked the plot in it's raw elements, but I agree it needed a bit more pacing at the end. Heading back to retake Bladehenge would have been nicer.

All in all, I still like it a lot. It was always fun, if not consitantly challenging or strategic. Driving around listening to heavy metal music is still glorious, and I'm going to keep unlocking stuff to get more songs, find cool jumps and find all the legends (which are brilliant).

Yeah, I'll be trading this in Friday towards MW2. That demo had no RTS elements in it, so I thought this was just gonna be a heavy metal hack and slash with some cool driving stuff too. I thought wrong.

Wow, this threads a kick in the guts. Looks like I'll continue waiting for Dragon Age and Assassins Creed 2 then.

It's a pity that people are writing the game off due to a few bad reactions. I think the reviews have been mixed. Some people really love this game and some don't. Metacritic has scores ranging from 70-100%. Give it a chance and maybe you'll be one of the people who like it.

(Full disclosure: I think my love of Heavy Metal might be what's helping me see past the flaws)

I'm yet to see a single credible review that praises the actual gameplay. Even the most glowing reviews have been some variation on "There are a lot of problems, but the soundtrack is awesome and some of the jokes are funny."

And for the record, this is possibly the worst video game I've played all year. And that's coming from someone who counts Psychonauts in his top five games of all time.

I found the gameplay fun, inventive and enjoyable despite being a clumsy mashup at times. (Warning! My opinion on this game is obviously not credible.)

I can see where everybody's coming from on why they disliked/were disappointed in Brutal Legend. I've had a blast with the game, and I think it is something people should at least rent. It took me about 15 hours to get through the main story, mostly because I kept getting sidetracked by running around the world, looking for collectibles and doing side missions. I took my sweet time, and I'm glad that I did. The story seemed much longer than it actually is that way.

As much fun as I've had with this game, I don't see much replay value in it. Sure, I'll play a few online multiplayer games yet, but now that I've gotten to 100% completion, there's not much incentive to revisit it, unless I want to look at the pretty scenery.

It's kind of telling that at least 50% of the "completion" is just finding bullshit scattered around the world or doing one of three kinds of side missions instead of actually playing through the story.

When I saw my completion percentage was in the 40s, I figured I had a bunch of game left.

The good news is that more people know about Tim Schafer, which is very much for the better. I doubt he will take any sort of "hit" for this game.

ETA: I meant to say that I doubt that he'd take a hit. Fucking iPhone.

He'll be fine. I'll even look forward to his next game. One misstep shouldn't end an otherwise great career.

This game was not short, at all. Ive played at least 4 hours in the campaign a night since it was released, and I just finished the main story last night. Still have plenty of jumps to find, races to run, sneak attacks to lead and songs to find. This is one of the most satisfying games I've played in a long time.

The campaign is, at best, six hours. The rest is just repetitive side missions and collection quests.

As much as I enjoy the game, Brad is right. The game is ridiculously short. I'm kind of regretting using the little bit of extra money I scraped together to get this instead of something like Arkham Asylum or Borderlands.

Declaring over and over that it's an awful game is stupid, when obviously a number of reviewers and chewers have said it was really fun. (and then saying that those opinions are not credible is insulting)

I'm repeating myself now, but anyway.
- I felt the campaign was short, but not ridiculously so.
- The side missions are a bit repetitive, but are still fun. It's worth noting that there is in fact more than three types: Ambush, Deathrack, Racing, Hunting, Cannoneer and then a smattering of odd types.
- What may initially seem repetitive and trivial is enhanced greatly by the fact that driving around this particular world with this particular soundtrack is quite enjoyable in itself. I don't have most of these songs, and getting 108 of them is (for me) a solid value for money proposition.

I'm not saying "anyone who didn't like it is wrong, this is a great game no mater what". It seems to me that it's been a really mixed reaction and for many people the game has struck a (power) chord. I just wish this discussion would move past declaring "It sucks and it's not worth buying".

As much as I enjoy the game, the side missions are just shy of Spider-Man 2 levels of monotony. They get old in much more of a hurry since there's no gimmick as fun as the web slinging in that game.

...said Hair-Metal Hero.

Sign me up!

Even though I didn't totally enjoy the game, I cant hate it because it introduced me to Angel Witch.