Brütal Legend

[Iconoclast]

Brütal Legend, a third-person Action/Adventure game fueled by insane action, bizarre imagery and a shitload of Metal.

Trailer

Brütal Legend follows the story of Eddie Riggs (named for Eddie the Head, the mascot of Iron Maiden, and Derek Riggs, the artist who created him), who is living as a roadie for a Heavy Metal band. The game begins one night before a gig. As Riggs is tuning a guitar, an accident happens and he starts to bleed, his blood dripping onto his cursed belt buckle, which bears a strong resemblance to Motörhead's Snaggletooth emblem. Before he knows it, the beast on his buckle has come alive and transported him into a Heavy Metal and Nordic fantasy inspired alternate history where demons have enslaved humanity.

The game is mainly based on themes such as Metal, motorcycles, bikers and Nordic mythology. So we can expect a Full Throttle with less brains, more lol-factor and way more violence. The game's style is cartoony and bizarre but at the same time violent and gory. It's almost like Guitar Hero meets God of War. References also vary from names of musicians, bands and songs to B-movies and horror tales. And if you look a bit more carefully you'll find even biblic and Shakespearean references, just so you know that Metal is also fucking intellectually badass.

Brütal Legend is a third person action game, the gameplay is similar to others in the genre. Eddie Riggs wields a battle axe he found at the beginning of the game as a primary melee weapon, while his second weapon is a guitar that he brought back with him from the real world. A forward attack sends Eddie attacking his enemies with the battle axe, while a wider slash attack takes out a larger quantity of enemies. Using a V-Factor guitar (which has magical powers in the Heavy Metal Era), Eddie Riggs can play it to cast magic spells. The guitar is used as a ranged assault weapon, when wielded players can perform a guitar solo in response to your combo-styled button presses (similar to Johnny Whatever or Total Distortion). Attacks are based upon the combo pressed in, possible combos include a pyrotechnics display where flames come from the ground to burn your enemies. A third weapon is the Deuce, a drop-top coupe Eddie builds out of spare parts he finds. The Deuce can be used to run enemies over, but it is also used to traverse the large game world. Eddie can use his magic guitar to summon the Deuce. Ancient garages can be used to upgrade the Deuce with weapons and abilities. A large part of the gameplay involves controlling an army of metal-themed characters, such as...

Thick-necked Headbangers

Roadies that carry amps that blast killer feedback

"Runaways", girls who battle with flamethrowers while riding on Eddie and the other characters' shoulders, perhaps a reference to the all-girl rock band, The Runaways.

"Fire Barons" that trap enemies in rings of fire left by their motorbikes

Large-fisted Bouncers.

When Eddie defeats a type of character, they will then join his army. Each type has its own attributes. Simple commands such as "Defend" or "Attack" are issued to the army by use of the D-Pad.

In my opinion, the main thing here, is the sound. The voice acting is going to feature several heavy metal musicians and Holywood stars (Fuck no). Until now, it's been confirmed that Jack Black will play Eddie's role, along with Lemmy Kilmister playing "The Kill Master", the game's main antagonist. Other familiar voices for the metalheads are Rob Halford and Ronnie James Dio (Yay). Not many other names have been revealed yet. The soundtrack is also another interesting point, featuring original songs by Zakk Wylde, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath and many other muscians. It's also been confirmed that Peter McConnell, Schaffer's long time partner and the maker of soundtracks of many of his games, will also be on the crew.

Since I fucking love Metal, this is going to be awesome. Unfortunately, it's X360 and PS3. Fuck.

[Ivan]

Tim Shaffer's doing it.

Nuff said.