Just done the first proper RTS section and to my surprise I found it extremely enjoyable. I usually hate the genre but this worked well for my tastes. In fact it's barely RTS at all!
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Completed the game minutes ago. It was an enjoyable ride, but doesn't reach the valhalla intended for great games.
I think that the game tries to be too many things at once, without excelling in one; there are three main activities in the game: combat, strategy and driving.
Starting from driving, controls need to be much more tighter, like giving the car brakes that actually work and a steering wheel that doesn't need to depend on the circle button (played this on PS3) to actually turn the Deuce. While this is not a concern during most of the game, there are a few instances where you have to shoot, steer the vehicle and cope with everchanging camera angles and relative controls; I've found these section, as well as driving into small ways, extremely frustrating.
Your car starts to fly off the moment you take a bumb and obstacles that should be no problem for an armored car are either indestructible or send you up in the sky.
Combat and strategy are strictly linked together and it's impossible to talk about one without citing the other.
Eddie's axe has a limited number of effects that can be added but none of them really increase your melee damage, making single combat boring: near the end of the game enemies take more or less the same amount of hits (depending on the axe property) they did in the beginning and whatever special move you're pulling off it won't feel as powerful as it should be. That works well in the strategy segments as you need to rely on your troops and their team attacks to actually get an edge over your opponent, but stage battles can range from frustrating to "what?", meaning that you can win without understanding what you have exactly done. It doesn't help either that the game cheats in a few battles where it spams powerful units even if you have total control of the fanbase (your currency). As controls for battle and strategic command are always available, building an actual strategy is very difficult...it might not be the soul of the game, but when you as a combatant aren't powerful enough to pull it off alone, at least give me decent control over my troops.
Despite all these shortcomings, the mix of these three styles is good enough to let you play throughout the game; I completed it in slightly more than 10 hours with all solos, all of the lore, a third of the serpents, all secondary missions done including the hunting ones, although I got no trophy for that (not that I care much but among them there's one for completing all hunting missions).
The game never really drags out (if not when driving from location to location) and alternating between stage battles, secondary missions and driving segments is good enough to keep people interested.
Secondary missions are a total miss. They are far too similar to each other and they don't give too many fire tributes either (the currency used in the Motorforge to upgrade a lot of things, from your guitar to even parts of the world).
Graphics are gorgeous. The use of colors, special effects and attention to detail really give a soul to Brutal Legend's world - graphically it's really one of the most enticing worlds of this generation because it has style over technicalities. However this comes at the price of pop ups and a somewhat short line of sight; framerate is incosistent too and while it never slows down, the impression is that the game skips some frames now and then to keep up with the action.
Voiceovers are wonderful and the soundtrack is good too...of course you need to like metal to appreciate it and even if you do you might dislike some tracks, although there a few surprises here and there, like prog metal groups like Crimson Glory,
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The citations from the real world of metal are numerous and made me laugh loud (
) and the whole Glam VS Jam thing going on the first hours of the game had me wonder why there wasn't Helstar's "He is a Woman, She is a Man" in the soundtrack.
If I really need to nitpick on the soundtrack, I would have loved more '70s tracks, Eddie mentions it in the beginning: you've got Ozzie, the Led Zeppelin citation and no Deep Purple? A bit of Iron Maiden and Virgin Steele too, linking the new waves the two sprung with the revolution in the game would have great. But I know this was more limited by contracts and royalities than anything else...I'm very glad that Double Fine as a whole was able to capture part of metal's iconography and successfully bring into a videogame without sacrificing too much if either world.
With or without metal references Brutal Legend has been an enjoyable ride, some bumps, but nevertheless good.Comment
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My only complaint with those sections so far has been the same problem I've had with the rest of the game - I've been left slightly overwhelmed by everything as it tend to just throw info at you, and not very succinctly either.Originally posted by PeteJ View Post
I think that's partly my fault for not learning my lessons from my earlier posts and taking the time to read the instructions properly. As a result I found that during the first real battle (the one after the initial tutorial outside of the settlement), I got confused quite quickly.
It didn't help that I hadn't realised that you have to be in close proximity to your troops to command them.
My only second bugbear is that I initially had some problems telling which were my troops and which belonged to LionWhite. That said, the fact that they've all started to wear pink spandex is quickly solving that problem
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I'm feeling completly underwhelmed by it gameplay wise tbh. What i hate the most is that the music changes track if you go into something else.
Probably end up trading it in for Borderlands/Forza next week.
Storywise though its completly Tim Schafer epic, its whats keeping me going!
Last edited by SuperBeatBoy; 18-10-2009, 15:57.Comment
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It isn't a great game as kerensky put so well and I'll probably trade it on Friday for Borderlands too, but I am still hugely enjoying it. There are problems all over the place and it often feels like a throwback to gaming ten years ago, but the love-letter to Metal is so wonderfully done that I can't help get swept along with the ride.
I'm glad I'm not the only one having problems telling the difference between sides. Thank god friendly fire isn't on!Comment
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Just finished this and that pretty much sums it up, enjoyed it a lot. Shame the humour dies off towards the end though.With or without metal references Brutal Legend has been an enjoyable ride, some bumps, but nevertheless good.Comment
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Good story, just finished it myself. Do hope it isn't the last of Eddie Riggs, fantastic character.
Can't believe i didn't work out till the final battle that you can upgrade units with the Y/T button. Doh!Comment
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I have to say I'm really not enjoying the RTS in this much at all. I love the world, I love the characters and dialogue and I even like the driving/standard hack and slash combat. But the RTS stuff is such a drag and I'm not finding it that much fun in all honesty. I'll probably trade it in this week as soon as possible.Comment
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Yep!
I hope there's no sequel (not something Tim Schafer has really done in the past, thankfully). It's a Legend and should stay one... I can't really see them doing "Brutal Legend 2": Eddie Riggs gets sucked back into a heavy metal fantasy world - AGAIN!
One thing I hope happens
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I thought the world itself had a fantastic history & characters. Would like to see it get some more exploration.Comment
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Ok I'm stuck on an RTS battle...the one where you need to
. I seem to be completely underpowered against the
. Spent an hour in the battle and didn't seem to be getting anywhere!
Any tips?Comment
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A general rule for stage battles is to get the upper hand on resources ASAP and then wait to stockpile units before attacking, every stage has a choke point where you can plant the rally banner and for a defensive line.Comment
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Hmm, problem I'm having is the two choke points (one on either side). It's difficult to pile up the units on both, especially when the horses come in and destroy everything.Comment
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Concetrate on one. If the enemy is using horses go for ranged units and the big-fisted units; one will weep them busy while the other will bring them down.Comment
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