BAD BREATH: Demon nuns in Brutal Legend can hold you off with their impressive exhalations.

Tim Schafer’s Brütal Legend is a masterpiece in storytelling, but the gameplay struggles to keep up.

There are some games that live up to or even exceed the hype surrounding it before launch — Batman: Arkham Asylum comes to mind — and then there are some that completely let you down.

Well, Brütal Legend falls somewhere between that — this game from Tim Schafer, the man who was involved in such classics as the Monkey Island series, Grim Fandango, Day of the Tentacle and Full Throttle, is one of the most highly anticipated games of year, yet the reality of playing it falls a bit short of the promise.

That’s not to say that Brütal Legend is a bad game — in terms of vision (the heavy metal theme), storytelling and humour, the game is as good as anything Schafer has ever designed — it’s just that it doesn’t quite hit the high note that I was hoping for.

Metalhead

Where to begin? Let’s start with the best part of the game — the story.

You play Eddie Riggs, a roadie for a modern heavy metal band who suddenly finds himself in an alternate world where heavy metal is very much a part of real and surreal life.

It seems Eddie is in possession of a mystical belt handed down from his father and when a stage accident results in some of his blood splashing on the belt, Eddie gets transported into this alternate reality.

This world is based on heavy metal imagery — mountains made up of skulls, monuments of electric guitars and bizzare creatures from heavy metal album covers.

Heck, even the population is made up of heavy metal archetypes like headbangers, men with long blonde hair and women in tight leather clothing.

Eddie soon realises that even though the world is influenced by heavy metal music, the people have largely forgotten how to play music and are now mostly slaves under General Lionwhyte and his cohorts of heavy metal demons.

The thing is, in this world, metal music has mystical powers and a person who can play an electric guitar carries a weapon capable of decimating enemies with bolts of lightning and fire!

So, Eddie teams up with the local resistance group headed by Lars, teaching them the power of heavy metal music while helping to free the world from the demons.

The story is extremely funny, especially if you have some appreciation of heavy metal archetypes — for example, Lars is exactly the archetype of a 70s heavy metal band leader, with long blonde hair and wearing only a leather vest and tight pants.

BIG CENTIPEDE: Boss levels are fun, but these are sadly few and far between, while most levels are more like real-time strategy games.

General Lionwhyte on the other hand, is an archetype of glam metal, with eye shadow and lipstick and hair so luxuriant he can use it to fly!

There are also a myriad of characters, mostly voiced by famous actors and heavy metal musicians — Eddie himself is voiced by actor Jack Black, while Tim Curry, Ozzy Osbourne, Lemmy Kilmister (of Motorhead) and other well-known personalities lend their voices to many others.

The voice acting, even from the musicians, are top-notch and together with some really good animation, makes the whole world feel really alive.

Gameplay

METAL COVERS: The vast, open world of Brutal Legend is often breathtaking, with Heavy Metal album covers as the basis for most of the architecture and creatures.

The gameplay in Brütal Legend is in third-person perspective and from most of the trailers online, you’d think the game is a third-person action-adventure.

It is in the early part of the game, where you literally pick up an axe and your electric guitar and lay waste to a bunch of heavy metal demon-druids.

These levels are actually the most fun parts of the game and allows you to drive your “druid-plough” called Deuce in a beautifully-realised open world, meeting strange characters while hacking and slashing to complete your missions.

There are giant spiders to fight, fire beasts to corral and loads of quite fun adventuring stuff to do.

However, about a third into the game, when you marshal a large army for battle, the game turns into a third-person real-time strategy game, where you gather resources (by harvesting the spirits of heavy metal fanboys), build a factory (the music stage) and produce your army to fight the other side.

While I enjoy an RTS as much as anybody, these levels, while not difficult by any means, can be frustrating because not only is it a jarring change from the rest of the game, but an RTS in third-person perspective is not the easiest type of game to control.

IT'S HUUGE: Eddie Riggs has to contend with Bouncers, powerful dudes with extremely large fists.

For example, while a battle is going on, there are a dozen or so troop types on the ground and having to run up to the one you want and press the correct button to marshal them is practically impossible.

During these RTS sequences, you gain a pair of wings so you can fly around to get a bird’s eye view of the battlefield or to quickly get to newly created troops to send them into battle.

The thing is the RTS sequences could do with some more work on the AI and the control mechanics to make it better.

For instance, I often carried a rally flag which is supposed to get the army to follow me, but mostly newly-created troops seemed to stay where they were rather than rally to my flag.

Oh yes, there are a lot of side missions to do, and though they are often funny, are quite repetitive in nature.

Most of the time each side mission has you either laying down a marker so that a person controlling a cannon can target enemy troops, or having you take control of the machine gun on your car to blast enemies as they run up towards you.

Side missions allow you to gain fire tributes, which is the currency in this world, allowing you to meet the Guardian of Metal (voiced by Ozzy Osbourne) and buy weapon upgrades.

POWERFUL: Riggs has to free the world from the yoke of General Lionwhyte and his luscious, flying hair.

Unfortunately, the largely repetitive nature of these side missions means you’re not particularly motivated to complete them all.

Conclusion

In terms of storytelling, Brütal Legend really stands out — it’s genuinely funny, poignant and you end up really caring for the characters, especially for Rigg’s on-again, off-again girlfriend, Ophelia.

I found the game to be as funny and engaging in its story as anything Schafer has ever done, and stands right up there with Grim Fandango and Full Throttle as some of the best examples of storytelling in games.

However, the game’s mash-up of a few game genres is at best an interesting experiment that could still use some polishing.

In my opinion, Brütal Legend would have been an excellent game if the RTS parts were fewer and the hack-and-slash adventuring bits were more extensive.

I know we usually don’t give ratings on games, but in this case I feel I have to just to give you a sense of what the game is worth — in terms of gameplay, Brütal Legend warrants a 7 out of 10, but if we’re talking about story, I’d give it a 9.

Taking everything into consideration, I’d give Brütal Legend an overall score of 8. Still a good score and a a fun game but not an outstanding one.

Pros: Great story; excellent voice acting; top marks for the overall aesthetics.

Cons: Gameplay could do with a bit more work.