DECAPITATION!

Xbox 360 and PS3

The world of metal has finally come to life. Jack Black gets to use his alter ego for an amazing adventure. The Titans leave behind all they know so that others after them may continue the legacy of metal.

Brutal Legend starts off with the roadie Eddie Riggs. He is the roadie of a tween band that disgraces metal. He finds them sick but he just does his job. One of the band members decides to climb the stage prop and that’s what causes the adventure to begin. Eddie is crushed by the stage prop and a drop of his blood falls into his belt buckle. He is then taken to the world of metal. After acquiring your weapons and meeting up with Ophelia, you make your way to Lars and his little sister Lita. They then embark on many missions to free everyone and create peace. You can acquire new powers for your axe and guitar. You may also upgrade The Deuce (aka The Druid Plow) with new engines, weapons, and armor. Before you can do that though you must access the Motorforge where you meet the Guardian of Metal. The game has MANY collectibles to get, such as Legends, Serpents, Lightning Plug Jumps, and many more.

You will notice that Brutal Legend has a cartoony type style to it. This style fits it very well and looks better than any other that could be done. There are occasional frame rate drops here and there but it’s not a game killer in any way whatsoever. You will find yourself gazing into the sky as they have put a lot of work into their world.

Jack Black (Eddie Riggs) and Jennifer Hale (Ophelia) do a fantastic job. All other voice acting is very well done and everyone’s voices fit. The only complaint I have is when you drive/walk past a group of your allies in the world, they tend to say a quote every single time. I’ve only noticed three different things that they say. I got to the point once where I almost turned off voices. The humor starts to die off after about an hour of game play. It was incredibly disappointing but I could live without it.

The cut scenes and animations look flawless to me. I wouldn’t say that they are seamless between them and game play but you can see the effort they put into the animations.

Online play consists of an RTS type mode that you do in single player. You play as one of the three factions and can have up to seven other people playing with you. You may also just go again and AI which is more fun to me because people online are too good. You play as the leader of a faction and get fans from the geysers in the ground that has the souls of fans coming out of them. You build merch booths around the geysers and that is your form of currency. You use them to get units. Both sides get a stage and the first one to have their stage destroyed, loses. I haven’t put a lot of time into it but it isn’t too interesting.

There are some bugs in the game that I have spotted and they are enough to really irritate you. You can and will get stuck between The Deuce and a wall/rock formation. The only way that I have managed to get around it is to revert to last checkpoint. It doesn’t cause you to lose and progress or collectibles, but it does make you go across the map back to where you last check pointed. It’s usually either a Motorforge or where you just completed a mission.

The game may only be roughly 5 hours, but it was a dam good game at that. I enjoyed all of it and am still enjoying it. I am currently trying to locate all of the collectibles. The humor is good when it is present, the characters are amazing, and the combat is fun and never seems to get old. Rock on Eddie, the Gods of Metal would be proud.

8.5/10