Brutal Legend Review

Iron-made Den

Providing a bit of redemption for the disappointingly straight sidequests is the multiplayer portion of the game, which is pretty directly based on the Stage Battles formula. It’ll be fairly standard stuff to anyone who has bested the singleplayer game previously, but kitted out for team-based games.

The teams in question are based on the singleplayer campaign obviously, but they vary slightly in their strengths and weaknesses. Ironheade is the all-round, smash-em-up faction that wins through superior firepower. Tainted Coil, the demon faction, is the more wizardly side of the game that has access to some summoning spells and special buffs. Drowning Doom is the goth-faction which can depress and slow enemy troops.

Each team has access to its own special units too and, just like in the singleplayer game, your player character can join in the fray as well as ordering troops around. You can perform special attacks with your nearby forces too, with these ranging from assembling nearby headbangers into a moshpit around you to carrying the bouncers around in front of you and tossing them fist-first into a crowd.


It’s good to see that the multiplayer mode comes with an offline mode too, even if it is limited to AI practice matches – too many games these days don’t come with support for offline multiplayer.

To be frank though, while the multiplayer side of Brütal Legend is definitely intriguing and interesting, we’re not honestly sure we can see it becoming a huge hit on Xbox Live, as you get a fair share of it in the singleplayer campaign. The fact that it’s a mostly a more drawn-out and tactical affair than your average Halo brawl means that it’s better suited to fighting against friends than online strangers too – so you’re somewhat reliant on pals having copies of the game too.

As for the singleplayer campaign, it’s somewhat hard to arrange our thoughts on it all, to be quite honest. We know we like it more than almost any other Xbox game we’ve played this year, that’s for sure – but it’s hard to nail down why, as aside from the humour and setting, huge swathes of the gameplay are pretty samey. Seen one third person hack-and-slash, you’ve seen them all, right?


There are elements which help set Brütal Legend apart from other games in the genre admittedly, but these tweaks aren’t always for the better. Playing riffs on your guitar to cast spells or summon your car for example can get pretty tedious when you’re having to do it for the thousandth time and in the middle of a battle. On the other hand though, it does bring something fresh to the game. It’s hard to reconcile these two viewpoints when you can appreciate both sides.

One thing we’re sure of though is that Brütal Legend’s appeal is both broad and lasting, so that you don’t need to be a huge metal-head in order to love the game. These days, I tend to prefer The Down Trodden String Band to Black Sabbath, for example – but I still thought Brütal Legend was still a riotous romp and while the gameplay itself can be getting a tiny bit monotonous by the time you’ve made a proper dent in the lengthy singleplayer campaign, it still holds merit as a wholly hilarious dissection of heavy metal.

Like Psychonauts before it, there are parts of the game where the unrealism and unbridled imagination of the story and art start to clash a bit with the tired traditions and banalities of the gameplay, but that doesn’t stop it from becoming something with unending charisma and flair. In a world where we’re still stuck with space marines and men in pointy hats for the most part, Brütal Legend stands out as something truly original and deserving of praise, suitable for all ages and tastes.