Brutal Legend: review to be sung to the tune of ‘Paranoid’

• Format: PS3 (version reviewed), 360
• Unleashed: Out Now
• Publisher: EA
• Developer: Doublefine
• Players: 1 (offline), 2 – 8 (online)
• Site: www.doublefine.com

To be sung (badly) to the tune of ‘Paranoid’ by Black Sabbath

(Intro)

Brutal Legend, here it is. First

In the courts now

In the shops.

Your avatar is Eddie Riggs

A roadie with great

Mutton chops.

(Musical break)

Sucked into a heavy metal

World that’s full of

Evil foes,

You’ll meet friends along the way but

All the women

Look like hos.

Can you help Riggs

Fight off all these fiends?

Hell yeah.

(Musical break)

It’s a bit like GTA cos

You’re free to roam

As you please.

You even get cars and bikes to

Drive around in

Are you pleased?

(Guitar solo)

(Musical break)

Slash with axe and shoot with guitar

Combat’s simple

And yet fun.

RTS bits by the end though,

Spoil it all for

Everyone.

(Musical break)

An excellent script for Jack Black

Who plays Eddie

Perfectly.

Not even Schafer however

Can hide the flaws

Completely.

(Outro)

Brutal Legend would like to thank:

Metal gods such as Ozzy Osbourne and Lemmy for agreeing to perform in – game cameos; all the awesome metal bands who lent their music to the game; and of course Jack Black for giving an unbeatable performance as Eddie Riggs (decapitatiiiooonn!!).

Tim Schafer, for the list of musical styles, fashion styles, and bands he dislikes which informed enemy design and attacks; also for translating the prosaic duties of the roadie and band crew into colourful characters and enemy flattening moves; plus of course for the original concept and predictably sharp script. Special thanks to Tim too for steering Brutal Legend away from the fully fledged RTS it started out as.

The awesome heavy metal album cover style art design, for drawing attention away from, and sometimes masking altogether, minor technical problems with the graphics. Big shout to EA too, for rescuing Brutal Legend from publication purgatory after it was dropped by Activision.

EA also get a celebratory riff in their direction for ensuring the playable demo included every major element of the game – except the RTS battles, which have proven unpopular with many reviewers and fans. You guys rock!

The Doublefine website for providing a detailed description of, and outline of tactics for, the aforementioned RTS battles. Hey, who said that should’ve been in the manual or tutorials?!!?

Most of all, a huge two fingered rock salute to the fans. R.I.P. Psychonauts!!

Memoirs of a roadie

We’ve been on tour promoting the album, and almost every single gig goes like this:

It starts off well. It always starts off well. An awesome comedy rock anthem, then we get the audience to sing along. Even if they haven’t heard anything off the setlist before, it’s simple stuff they’re familiar with from other bands. Everybody’s having a good time. The rest of the gig follows the same pattern; another comedy rock song everybody loves, another piece of rockin’ audience participation. Repeat until everyone involved is sweaty as hell and ten times as happy. At least, that’s the plan.

The problem is those damn Real Time Strategy solos.

Schafer originally wanted the whole show to be one long solo. Eight hours of indulgent RTS soloing, can you imagine it? It’s not even proper RTS chord progression! He changed his mind thank Osbourne, but he kept some solos in – and they just don’t fit in with what the rest of the show became, if you ask me.

He doesn’t start soloing till a few songs in, and to start off with, you know what? The solos are kinda cool. They’re not too long, and they keep with the style of what the rhythm guy’s playing. As the gig goes on though, the solos get longer and more complex, till they’re whole songs of their own; and you can just tell the hearts of the audience aren’t in it when they’re trying to scream along. Most of ‘em just want the solo to end so they can get back to the songs they bought the tickets to hear in the first place.

If you check Schafer’s site, you’ll see him say ‘the fans love it man, they f****in’ love those solos! Brutal Legend is all about the solos, and I should know dude, I am Brutal Legend!’. He’s half right; the band would be nothin’ without him, and he’s behind most parts of the gig that everybody loves. Guy should check the gig reviews, though. Every time we try to show him what people are writin’, he runs for his bike and rides off into the sunset. Or should I say he makes a Run For The Hills, heh heh.

Sure, some people love his solos. There’s always people in the audience that really dig ‘em, and they aren’t half as loud as they are during the other parts of the show. They’re easy to see by the time half the gig’s over though, because by then they’re the only people moshing to the solos with any energy. Everybody else looks like they wish Schafer would get his death metal outfit Grim Fandango back together; I see it in their eyes.

It’s very rare I see anybody that doesn’t look like they’ve had a good time at the end of the show; but it’s also very rare I see anybody who looks like they’re dyin’ to come back and do it all over again.

7/10