A Singularity

http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2009/12/postmortem_behind_the_scenes_o_1.php

So the above is a link to an article concerning the postmortem that Double Fine released about Brutal Legend. In it it illuminates the reasons for some of the problems I pointed out with the game. Not in specific but in general.

The primary problem, it seemed, was with their crunch time. At the end of their crunch time they suddenly got a ton of content and had to struggle with integrating it and keeping it from crashing their development tools. Working on a huge project with similar issues, I can completely understand.

The other major issue seemed to be the lawsuit. There was a lawsuit towards the end of the development cycle due to publishers fighting over the game and generally being annoying and stupid. In my professional opinion. It didn’t occur to me but Double Fine Productions likely didn’t have a huge legal team to take care of the lawsuit, which meant that the heads of the company, IE the designers since it was a studio, had their time eaten up by the lawsuit. So a lot of testing was slot.

Hence the lack of polish.

Now the really question is: Given this, should have Double Fine pushed back the date?

It is quiet possible EA wouldn’t have allowed them to. Nor their budget. Plus money had already been spent on PR. Sadly video game distribution is such a streamlined beast if you aren’t digital.

Anyway I thought I should share that given my prior review.

So I just finished Brutal Legend.

And to be honest I’m left with a sense of vague disappointment.

The game was fun but it wasn’t polished. Which we knew from the very beginning. But the problem was that the story wasn’t polished either. The story went for a lot of glam and theme. I think perhaps I’m only the vague target audience of the game and that its true target audience, people who are huge fans of metal, are the only ones who can find themselves completely satisfied with this game. It has fun elements, funny characters, but overall it comes off as somewhat piece meal. Combined with some glaring game play flaws I find myself having a hard time calling it a good game despite my actual completion of it.
(continue reading…)

So Brutal Legend was a video game I rattled on about back in April and August. If you don’t remember here is a direct link.

http://TheSingularityBlog.Net/archives/tag/brutal-legend

So the demo for the game came out. And honestly, I was a little worried about playing it. Would the game meet my expectations? Would it be as funny as the original trailer (click above) made it out to be?

I should never have feared.

So Brutal Legend is about a roadie named Eddie who idolizes rock/metal music. But in this modern age, rock has been diluted by pop-rock wannabes. But through means that is explained in the demo that I don’t want to spoil, Eddie is transported magically to the land of rock metal, where he takes up a symbolic ax and a not so symbolic guitar, and begins kicking butt!

The game when synopsized does not come over as anything particularly original. The game play is a somewhat classic third person beat ‘em up with the standard melee/attack ranged attack lock on control scheme.

Okay I admit, I’m down playing the averageness of the game only because of the awesomeness it does have. For one the game has story. The demo gives you a good glimpse of it with a series of cut scenes. The story is narrated by Eddie (who is voiced by Jack Black) and he has some of the best lines regarding roadies I’ve ever heard. He really does make the lifestyle of a roadie sound interesting and epic, even. Thats how good the writing for at leas the demo is. It gives me great hopes for the actual game.

Second off is the music. I suppose if you really really hate rock music, you’re going to hate this game. Not only is the music inspired and from a lot of awesome bands (see link above) but almost everything in the world Eddie is transported to is based off of old style metal concert sets, and rock concepts. The flavor is intense. Its both a parody and a homage.

While I did mention that the game play was fairly basic. There were some aspects of it that were new to me personally. The attacks had a stronger versions of themselves that you could use by holding down the button. This led to a simplistic but interesting combo system. The game play itself is a little loose. But thats almost become a style of Double Fine Productions (whose last major product was Psychonauts).

The humor in demo was another aspect that I can’t ignore. From the very beginning all the characters you meet are interesting and each of them humorous in their own absurd way. Eddie is huge, can fix anything, and is voiced by Jack Black. The band he works for is a bunch of pop-punks who don’t listen to him and keep asking him to build more “modern” sets for them. At one point during the inital cut scenes, Eddie is about to say “Mother Fucker”. However the game stops, and prompts if you want to have the authentic roadie experience, or if you think it’d be funnier to bleep it out. I liked this little touch. It adds value to both choices. Later in the cut scene the entire story stops once again, only to ask you if you don’t mind gore in your game. Its presented once again in a cool fashion of ‘Gore is only used in this story when it is necessary, for historical accuracy, or when its really really awesome.’ and your choices are ‘Okay yes, but only if its very very awesome’ and ‘No gore please!’. Which pretty much sums up both sides the argument.

To add to the humor, your main character talks almost constantly during the actual game play, providing commentary to the absurdity of the world he has been dragged into. At one point your character is forced to ride a four legged altar down a pile/path of bones. During the entire time he is praying in a fumbling fashion to whatever being created the realm he is in, accidentally insulting him. It is hilarious, even if I don’t describe it well. The same thing happens during combat.

In addition to /all/ of this, there is a Psychonaut reference at the very beginning of the demo. Did you catch it?

I will most certainly be purchasing the full version of this game.