Remember Double Fine? They are a developing studio best known for their popular and well acclaimed platformer called Psychonauts. Not only was it intriguing and intuitive, but it also featured interesting characters and an engaging plot, something quite rare in videogames, overall. So now comes their next effort, Brutal Legend. It is also a platformer, but it takes a rather different approach from Psychonauts. While in Psychonauts the player was appointed psychic powers with which to save the Psychonauts from doom and destruction, in Brutal Legend you take on the role of Eddie, a guitar player in a metal band who is transported to a demonic dimension where he must save the people enslaved there.
Is that cool, or what? It gets cooler. Not only does Eddie bear an uncanny resemblance of Jack Black, but Jack Black himself is doing the voice-work for the character. At the game’s beginning, Eddie has two weapons with which to fend off demons: a large axe called The Seperator and his guitar, called Clementine. After pulling out Clementine, you can press buttons to bolts of metal thunder. Hold down the button to charge a blast, and press both the Seperator and Clementine button at the same time to execute a power chord called Earthshaker, that will literally knock down parts of Eddie’s surroundings.
And then there are the guitar solos, which are for casting more intricate and purposeful spells. For example, playing the Relic Raiser allows you to access areas that are covered by, well, “heavy metal vines”. Lift these vines and you can get whatever is inside, the first instance being the Deuce: a hot rod vehicle that will help the player get from place to place faster and more conveniently. Plus, it just looks cool, so all the more reason.
As Eddie progress through his journey, over time he meets up with a dozen or so teammates that are commited to freeing people from the rule of the dimension’s demonic entities. Your first ally is Ophelia, and once you have her you can execute team-up moves that do great amounts of damage. Each ally has specific advantages, so you will want to choose who you work with wisely, depending on the situation.
The game’s graphics look like something on the cover of a heavy metal album. There are freaky structures built of giant skeletons and the weirdest monsters, such as a group of face-eating demons that first appear to be a troop of elegant nuns. If ever a game was made for fans of metal, this is it, but above all it’s just a cool looking game. That’s why when it comes around this fall, people will be looking for it.
