William Bibbiani Reviews Tim Schafer’s Brutal Legend!

In April 2005, Tim Schafer’s Double Fine Productions baked us a delicious pie by the name of Psychonauts. It was just about the most delicious pie we ever tasted (i.e. it’s one of the greatest games ever made), but if we’re being honest, the crust was a little burnt (i.e. the combat was a little wonky). Still, it was a great pie (Psychonauts), and we all anticipated that Tim Schafer’s next culinary effort would have all the kinks worked out. It’s now October 2009, and after years of teasing us with all the ingredients of that same incredible pie (i.e. hilarious action-adventure gameplay), and after an extended legal battle to keep us from eating said pie (which only made us hungrier), Tim Schafer has finally given us a big hearty slice of… chocolate fudge cake (i.e. Brutal Legend, which has action-adventure gameplay but has surprisingly combined it with real-time stategy elements).

Some of us are so pissed that we didn’t get the pie that we asked for (i.e. Psychonauts without any of the flaws) that we’re neglecting to mention that the cake is delicious (i.e. Brutal Legend is really very, very good). But in experimenting with cake rather than perfecting his pie (i.e. trying something new), Schafer and Double Fine have made a less-than-filling dessert (i.e. Brutal Legend is too short and, in experimenting, has new bugs of its own). The good news is that, as we finish the pie, there’s a note at the bottom the plate telling us that there’s ice cream in the freezer (i.e. there’s multiplayer based on some of the better RTS mechanics). Unfortunately, when we open the freezer we find that there’s not enough ice cream for everyone, and it’s only our third favorite flavor (i.e. limited multiplayer options). Everyone says good night, politely complimenting both the cake and ice cream, but depending on our mood we might either declare the dessert as good as Psychonauts, or complain that Tim Schafer didn’t give us exactly what he promised (i.e. critical reaction has been mixed).

I will now elaborate.

Yeah, you’re going to want to turn the gore “On.”

In Brutal Legend, you star as Eddie Riggs, voiced extremely well by Jack Black, a heavy metal roadie who feels like he was born at the wrong time, since metal is for all intents and purposes dead in 2009. Eddie hypothesizes that he should have been born in the early 1970’s, but a freak on-stage accident actually sends him to an even more fantastical time and place in which his skills make him the most powerful hero on the planet. Perhaps most charmingly, Eddie has no desire for fame and glory: he’s a roadie at heart and roadies belong on the sidelines, helping others achieve their lofty ambitions. Soon, Eddie teams up with the noble Lars Halford (Zach Hanks), the Scandinavian leader of an underground resistance against the demonic Emperor Doviculus (Tim Curry, back in Legend mode), and puts his skills to work helping the more-charismatic Lars start a revolution, based on the ass-kicking power of rock.

It’s not a complicated story, but Brutal Legend is all but unique in the videogame industry in that it is populated with actual characters with strong personalities, ambitions, fears and yes, even flaws. Cameos from rock legends like Lemmy Kilmister and Ozzy Osbourne add a sense of legitimacy to Schafer’s surprisingly gentle fantasy. Despite the pervasive cursing and beheadings (unless you choose to turn those settings off, although I can’t imagine why you would), Schafer’s world is almost completely chaste, and the mere thought of French kissing a pretty girl (played by the always-great Jennifer Hale) sends our ultra-violent protagonist into an adorably befuddled state of twitterpation. The last thing you’d expect from a videogame based on badass heavy metal album covers would be an overwhelming sense of innocence, but that’s exactly what you get in Brutal Legend, and the game is better off for it.

Lita Ford cameos as my girlfriend’s new Halloween Costume. (“Hey honey, have you seen this?!  Sweetheart…? Why are you packing your things?”)

Gameplay begins with an extended sandbox Action-Adventure sequence, as players wander the large and imaginatively-designed world that the folks at Double Fine have created for us. The open world system, however, is one of Brutal Legend’s larger flaws, as sub-missions are limited in both variety and number, and since destination markers cannot be set without them completionists may find navigating the map in search of hidden items difficult towards the end of gameplay. And practically every exceptional piece of production design, like a tree growing from a mountain of giant eyeballs, gets the player’s imagination soaring. “Wow! What kind of fantastical mission will I get to play here?!” you might wonder. Sadly, the answer is most often, “Nothing, really. It just looks cool.” And indeed it does, but given the amount of time this game was in turnaround would it have killed you guys to have given us something to do there?

In between learning all-powerful guitar solos (a face-melting solo that actually melts faces gets the most press, but my favorite is the solo that calls down a fiery Zeppelin upon your enemies) and completing sub-missions, you will also find yourself in the first act of Brutal Legend doing story missions involving reaching the top of mountains or the bottoms of caves and defeating over-sized boss monsters. Eddie controls beautifully in action sequences. Although some may find the use of “Rock Band”-esque guitar solos in the midst of battle flow-breaking, savvier gamers should find the system well-balanced, as most of Eddie’s solo moves deal massive amounts of damage and should not be available too readily. Yes, the action-adventure gameplay that appeared to give Tim Schafer such a hard time in Psychonauts has been handily refined in the first third of Brutal Legend, making the rest of the game surprisingly flawed due to Schafer’s attempts at innovation.

In a surprising gameplay mechanic, Eddie Riggs controls his squads via shadow puppetry.
(Thus making him a “master” of puppets. “Shadow” puppets. A master of… Just go with me here.)

You see, all of the standard action-adventure missions towards the start of the Brutal Legend have a single goal: building Lars Halford’s army. After enlisting headbanging foot soldiers, bassists with healing abilities and more, the game begins to emphasize squad-based mechanics over single player axe-wielding. These mechanics actually work pretty well. NPC’s are neither useless nor overpowered, encouraging the player to make use of squads while still beating most of the enemies up themselves. Once the army is assembled, however, the game abandons the standard action-adventure structure in favor of a half-dozen real-time strategy/action-adventure hybrid set pieces, in which Eddie and Lars’ armies face off against a colorful enemy’s own army in an effort to capture and defend Merch booths (read: towers) before making a final no-holds-barred assault on the enemy stage itself. Eddie still has to do a lot of the heavy lifting (read: killing) himself, but the emphasis of the game by this point has been permanently skewed.

The shift in gameplay is both gradual and really, really weird. All the marketing for Brutal Legend emphasized the game’s beat-‘em-up gameplay, only for the player to find themselves playing a different genre altogether several hours after they’ve already been hooked. Schafer and Double Fine do an admirable job of insidiously building the beat-‘em-up player’s RTS skills throughout the first part of Brutal Legend, but for the most part the game never looks back once the epic battles begin. Ironically, the game actually feels a lot shorter after war is officially declared. Initially Brutal Legend turns you loose in a large Scandinavian-themed world before waging war on a big boss, then lets you explore a more Hot Topic-centered world of spookiness before another enormous boss battle, but rather than letting you explore the world of Emperor Doviculus before fighting him, you’re thrust quickly into the big action-packed climax. It plays well, but the result is that Doviculus, like Coach Oleander in Psychonauts, gets the short shrift in Brutal Legend’s story. Tim Schafer may be the only writer in the entire entertainment industry who finds his protagonists more interesting than his villains.

Actually, they are the road crew. (Duhn-DUHN-duhn-duhn-duhn-DUHN!)

The result is a game with an incomplete structure: by the time you get used to killing everyone by yourself, you won’t be doing that anymore. And since there are only about a half-dozen epic battles during the single-player campaign, you’ll probably find that by the time you get really good at the Braveheart-styled warfare, the game is actually over. Luckily, you can still explore the open world after the story ends, but by then pretty much all that’s left are vehicle races and ho-hum “There are some Bad Guys, let’s get ‘em” ambush missions. As mentioned above, a little more variety from the sub-missions would have worked wonders for replayability. As it stands, the first half of Brutal Legend feels like training for the second half, and the second half of Brutal Legend feels like training for the multiplayer.

I was unable to spend too much time in Brutal Legend’s multiplayer, but I was able to try commanding all three armies in several different battlefields. The locations are well-varied, forcing the players to attempt occasionally unorthodox strategies in order to outwit their opponents (my favorite was the level with a giant monster in the middle that kills your squads if you don’t distract it). There are only three army types, however, and their balance feels off. Eddie’s army and the Drowned Pool (a.k.a. the Hot Topic-y guys) function more-or-less the same, and since you spend the entire single-player experience playing as Eddie these armies give you an advantage in controlling your NPC’s and strategizing for them. Doviculus’ army, however, employs almost entirely different squad mechanics that probably kick ass with practice but at first will disarm players. Doviculus raises larger armies based on smaller squads already populating the map, allowing your opponents to outnumber you quickly if you’re not careful. Be warned of ye mighty learning curve.

Holy crap! Tim Schafer’s trying something new! Let’s get out of here before the critics blame us!!!

Actually, that’s pretty good advice for Tim Schafer himself. Brutal Legend, like Psychonauts before it, falls just shy of perfection because he tried something new. The result is admirable, fun, funny and involving and well worth any gamer’s money, but while we admire Schafer’s efforts to keep gaming fresh and exciting it would be nice if he just once took everything he knew and crafted just one exceptional experience without exception. Just once. Then, by all means, he can go bug nuts again and make the world a nuttier place.

Wait… That’s what that cake needed! Walnuts (i.e. the benefit of experience with his chosen gameplay mechanics)!