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Review: ‘Brütal Legend’
The new video game “Brütal Legend” opens like the first track on Metallica’s “…And Justice For All”: It’s a potent, energetic blast of rock that widens your eyes and puts you in the mood.
“Legend,” which stars Jack Black and was developed by revered game-industry imp Tim Schafer is a rock ‘n’ roll fantasy that tries to graft a wide range of gameplay styles into a funny, loving tribute to metal music.
Unfortunately, the actual game itself — the one you play with a console game controller — doesn’t match up to the inspired milieu and the impressive voice acting, graphics, soundtrack and stellar script.
Black plays roadie Eddie Riggs (who looks in the game like Meatloaf by way of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” perhaps an intentional homage), who finds himself waging a war against demons and a fey glam-rock poseur in an almost-medieval metal world of giant amps, literal headbanging rock slaves and demonic landscapes that wouldn’t look out of place on an Iron Maiden album cover.
Riggs must help free an enslaved world; he does it not with bullets and punches but with guitar licks and giant rock stages. It’s a brilliant idea, and for the first two or three hours of the game, it’s easy to believe that the game will be a perfect mix of narrative and fun gaming.
But the game begins to break down by trying to do too many things; it has elements of rhythm games (Eddie gets power-ups when you press button combinations in time with a music chart), has elements of large-scale action like “God of War,” has several driving-game challenges and, ultimately, becomes a giant real-time strategy game involving huge outdoor concert stages.
While it means you won’t get bored playing through the fairly short single-player part of the game, it also becomes frustrating to keep up with all the different kinds of controls and rules for all the different kinds of play. You wish the game would settle into a groove of consistent gameplay, but instead, it feels as if “Brütal Legend” is making up the rules as it goes along. And the core endgame is the giant real-time strategy bits that are the most frustrating to actually play. It’s very easy to lose control of what your army of roadies and headbangers are doing at any given moment.
That said, there’s lots to love: Jack Black is brilliant as Eddie. He’s much less annoying than he’s been in some movies — as he showed in “Kung Fu Panda,” he’s a fantastic voice actor and he doesn’t overplay the character. The game’s storyline is full of clever moments and funny lines (many of them dirty enough to earn the the game a Mature rating). The main menu screen is a fantastically conceived album cover that opens and offers its sleeves to display game options. Leading into it is a live-action mini-movie featuring Black.
Schafer, who gets a lifetime pass for his work on game classics like “Grim Fandango” and “Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle” has crafted a game that, despite its flaws, is still attractive and wholly original. And the voice work from Tim Curry and rock stars Ozzy Osbourne, Rob Halford, Lita Ford and Lemmy Kilmister are a joy to hear. It’s a world gamers should hope to return to; a sequel with more focused gameplay would be worth pursuing.
“Brütal Legend” is definitely a worthy rental, but like a concert that ends without any encores, it leaves you wanting more.
“Brütal Legend”
$60, for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3
Rating: M for Mature
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