Brutal Legend for Xbox 360 Reviews by Gamers

Admittedly I was not excited about Brutal Legend to begin with. Tim Shafer is a good designer but I feel like he's a little bit like a French film. You're going to get something different but whether you'll like it or not is entirely subjective. I think Brutal Legend follows that.

Whether you like Heavy Metal or not (I'm not a fan but was in jr. high) the humor and art direction will speak to you. After a few hours of playing I was telling a buddy about the game and I realized that everything that went into this game was meant to make you say "Awesome" in a burned out roadie voice.
Exhibit A) Oh I have to do a grinding mission where I kill 10 pigs, is this WoW? Wait they're not pigs, they're Razor Boars and they they're half pig half motorcycle. And I don't hunt them with a sword or axe, I have to round them up while riding on the back of a flaming Trike while playing riffs...Awesome.
Exhibit B) Oh I have to fight the requisite giant spider boss. Wait it's not just a giant spider, it's a huge engine SHAPED like a spider and the only way to hurt it is to bash it's exposed brain with my flaming axe...Awesome.

Ok so the awesomeness aside, the art direction is great, at first glance the game looks like a dark version of every other fantasy game, but then you look closely at the objects and you see that they are all heavy metal...Literally. The trees are made of motorcycle tailpipes or glistening metal Valkyrie wings. Jumps and buildings are made of stage scaffolding and marshal stacks. I saw an interview where they said the art direction was to make every second look like the cover of a heavy metal album...they did.

Now the downside, after about half the game, story missions switch to a kind of front lines action RTS. It's weird and feels like it slows down the fun parts of the game. I found myself putting story missions off as long as possible and then just hoping to get through them so I could explore again. Oh and the voiceovers are a bit repetitive.

I would just like to say, that I can’t really think of a SINGLE THING that bothered me about this game and I’m a pretty hypercritical guy. So here is a list of its awesomness.

Graphics: Detailed, stylized, UNIQUE, varied and awe inspiring environments that I actually stopped to look at several times. Who thought a metal-themed-world could look so fascinating and beautiful.

Gameplay: Brutal Legend mixes elements from strategy, racing, action, open-world and RPGs flawlessly. Each form of gameplay is fun. Combat is always entertaining and fun to look at, and the game keeps giving you enough upgrades to keep things interesting. Avid explorers will be well-rewarded, as finding collectables is key to earning certain useful upgrades. Even fetching collectables is fun because you don't simply walk up to the floating-spinning-obtainable like in most games. Collectables are usually obtained by playing a short-song at a place or object where a tell-tale sign of goodies alerts you to the presence of something useful. Maybe it's the red-thorn flowers around an old monument, or maybe a dragon statue bound in chains. They are always easily identifiable, and not simply collected, but unleashed. Idols raise from the ground with sparks and lights. Dragon Statues scream fire and break their chains. Just driving around the countryside looking for things is fun in this game.

Story/Setting: Characters are humorous, unique and well acted. So many bazaar concepts are well imagined and brought to life by Brutal Legend. It took me totally off guard because I was really expecting some dank, dark and offensive metal-setting, and what I got was a colorful and beautiful fantasy/metal world. The story does a good job at motivating you to keep moving forward producing an adequate amount of “care” for its characters and events.

That's all the room I have for this review, but I encourage even the most skeptic of gamers to give this game a shot.