A little over three years ago Brutal Legend was released on the 360/PS3 under a giant slew of drama between publishing companies; this also ended up being one of the more notable aspects of the title coming out. Designed by the same amazing team that came up with such inspirational titles as Pyschonauts the only complaint that people really had about the game was that it wasn’t as life inspiring as they really hoped it could be.
The design document for Brutal Legend is probably just a series of 80’s album covers stapled together into what would probably be the world’s greatest collage ever made. While any one of these covers is probably entirely more than any one life could ever aspire to be, the designers also thought it wise to grab some of the greatest living rock legends and have them do voices of characters in the game as well. They also added Jack Black as the main character and some RTS gameplay just for seemingly good measure. That game is now out on the PC.
The good news about this is that the game hasn’t changed at all since the release, and it still contains everything that one would expect from the brilliant people that work over at Double Fine. It has been tweaked to make it entirely playable on the computer
and several options added in that create the illusion that this isn’t really a game from several years ago. Those out there that still, rightfully, believe that the PC is the best gaming platform known to man and haven’t played this game can experience it after all of those nasty post launch bugs have been ironed out.
That said the game was kind of middling when it came out many moons ago and now it is just kind of old and middling. The only saving grace of the game from the start was pretty much the atmosphere and the voice talent that went into it, sadly the gameplay is still pretty much entirely forgettable. The odd mix of RTS mechanics that are both cumbersome and not really ever in the game enough to make them difficult enough to be interesting is also another massive strike against the game.
The real problems with Brutal Legend aren’t that it is dated or old, as most of the gameplay hasn’t evolved at all in the last couple of years (which is way sadder now that I read that), it is that the game was pretty forgettable besides the writing. Most of the time there is something that is chuckle worthy or cool to look at in the world, and considering that it has been re-released at the budget price of 20 dollars on steam it is hard to tell anyone that is even passingly interested that they shouldn’t get it, even if I would probably advise waiting until a Steam sale just to pick it up for half price.