Zero Punctuation: Brutal Legend

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Sampler

He who is not known
May 5, 2008
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I played it for about ten minutes yesterday at the Eurogamer Expo in Leeds (well, played for about half that time, rest was unskippable cut scenes :( ) and all i have to say is:

"holy crap there's an RTS under there?"

It started like some bad platformer slowly teaching you what button does what for the guitar and axe (not to be mistaken for being the same thing ;) ) because you know gamers are too dumb these days to either work it out for themselves or rtfm?

Then I ended up for no apparent reason driving around in some american hot rod car fighting what looks like Audrey II which apparently can be knocked out by simply hitting it's split tongue a few times.

Maybe the humour would've plastered over this weak platform style game until I got to the good bit but the volume on the booth next to me was way higher so I only heard everything with a two minute delay.

Suffice to say it's nice to see someone else not like this game much either as I'd thought half the internet had gone mental (to, you know, join the other half).
 

Something Amyss

Aswyng and Amyss
Dec 3, 2008
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I was relieved to see him not verbally fellate the game based on Schafer's presence behind it.

I'm a bit confused about the humour element. The humour in the demo was the exact kind of trite B-Movie crap that I would expect from Jack Black in pretty much every movie he's ever done, and that seems woefully insufficient to fuel an entire game. The world seems "imaginative" enough, I guess, but only in the sense that Queen: The Eye just wasn't popular enough to accuse BL of plagiarism. And the gameplay we sampled struck me as bloody awful, even by the standards of the 900 Dynasty Warrior clones I've waded through looking for a good one.
 

GrinningManiac

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Jun 11, 2009
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Breutal Legend

I always pronounce it like that too! (This somehow validates my existence)

Quote me in your extra Punctuation, Oh mighty Cynical One, that I might think "Ha, I am noticed by someone relativly well-known" and thus begin my obsessive cycle

Good as always, though is it me or do they feel shorter?
 

Lord Beautiful

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Aug 13, 2008
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Was I the only one who caught the Eddie Izzard reference? I'd like to thank Yahtzee for that, as it gave me a good laugh, much like the rest of the review.

His review confirmed that which I feared, that Brutal Legend ends up being an RTS, and not a very deep one. Still, Schafer did suggest playing it as a slasher with RTS elements rather than as an RTS with slash-em-up gameplay, which I suppose works for someone like myself, someone who lacks a fondness of the RTS genre.
 

Hamster at Dawn

It's Hazard Time!
Mar 19, 2008
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I don't like RTS games but I liked Brutal Legend because it's NOT AN RTS. Yes, it has RTS elements in a reasonably sized chunk of the campaign but that doesn't make it an RTS anymore than sticking a "level up" system into an FPS suddenly makes it an RPG. If you don't like Sandbox games then fine but don't criticise them for not telling you things that you're suppose to explore. What's that? You actually have to work something out for yourself? In a GAME? It's not exactly a cryptic religious message hidden amongst various classical art pieces. Sorry Yahtzee, the review was funny but I fail to understand your issues with the game.
 

ninja steve

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Jul 4, 2009
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haha tyler durdan relationship awesome one yahtzee

EDIT: i have to say why the heck would you make an RTS on a console? it is a massive percentage better with a mouse and with patience which i know i dont have
 

Worsle

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Jul 4, 2008
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Dark Templar said:
Nice review, kinda thought the genius behind Psychonaughts would get buried under Jack Black and metal garbage.
Though funnily enough the metal and Jack Black are the stronger points of the game. Its real flaw is the lack of focus in the gameplay. So really you are not making any sense there.
 

Jin-Roh

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Oct 26, 2009
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Wow Tim Schafer was the designer? I thought if Jack Black was in it it would be something for the people who love King Kong or the other move he made about a school band. Any way I may now have to take a look though I never really like the hole 80's Rock band thing. Though I will have to pass it more on to someone who does like Ozzy. I head Ozzy is in the one place Yahtzee could not find for the car thing.
 

Murlin

I came here to laugh at you
Jul 15, 2009
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Funny solid review.
Though I still plan on playing the game, mainly because I actually take Yahtzee's reviews as a funny movie to pass the time rather then some judgment to refer to before buying stuff, an on the other hand because I like the concept and am cool with low-grade RTS as long as it has other things to replace it from time to time (Opposite of Halo Wars for those who don't get it)
 

Witty-Name

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Jul 12, 2009
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warthoggunner said:
I think I will buy this game at some time... Maybe when it's cheaper.

Anyway, good review.

Yahtzee studied German?
Sehr interessant.
It was pretty much mandatory for anybody who went to an English secondary school to spend five years studying either French or German. I ended up with French but now can hardly remember any of it.
 

ila

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Jul 29, 2008
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I have to agree about the point on the game not telling you very little. Like the bound serpents and hidden legends. I was kinda clueless as to freeing those. I really figured just a normal guitar attack would do the trick for serpents, not the full charge that I rarely used in combat. Same goes with the Earthshaker and legends. Also, never quite figured out how to customize Mt. Rockmore, although I wasn't too crushed since I mostly focused on weapon upgrades.

And yeah, game was short, I found the multiplayer insubstantial, and I would have prefered the stage battles to be more like Dynasty Warriors than an RTS.

I enjoyed it for the most part, but in the end I wish I would have rented it instead of buying and trading it a week later.
 

Eldarion

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Sep 30, 2009
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Worsle said:
Dark Templar said:
Nice review, kinda thought the genius behind Psychonaughts would get buried under Jack Black and metal garbage.
Though funnily enough the metal and Jack Black are the stronger points of the game. Its real flaw is the lack of focus in the gameplay. So really you are not making any sense there.
Yhea, I didn't think so.

The story was pushed out of the way so that Jack Black could share his metal fantasy.

The gameplay is a moot point, the story mattered more to me and it was hardly there.
 

katsabas

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Apr 23, 2008
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Wow. Apart from the fight club reference that had me laughing my teeth, I also liked the number of people being put on probation.

It that this time around though, the review was more joking than talking about the game. Still funny but I wanna hear more about the game. I did not see anything about the solos that Eddie can perform.
 

Booze Zombie

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Dec 8, 2007
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Tim said himself that you shouldn't play this like an RTS, just run in with a load of dudes and use the Y button on your controller.

Sounds simple enough.

Though, the lack of clarity in the game is exceptionally annoying and the story is rather brisk, I still think this is a decent game.
 

WaffleGod

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Oct 22, 2008
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The umlaut crap was just weak.

Many metal bands use it. Like Motörhead.

For the rest it was rather solid review, but I didn't laugh with it. Kind of a missed opportunity, oh well.

And as a sidenote, I don't get the entire, "OMFG! it's an RTS! this game must suck!" thing that people are saying. Anybody who played a real rts (no, halo wars does NOT count as a real rts) will see it's just using RTS elements and made them simple enough for most people to understand.
 

J-Alfred

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Jul 28, 2009
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What is it about Metal nowadays that makes them slap umlauts over everything in an attempt to make it LOOK cool? Games like this are a perfect example; actually pronouncing the umlaut sounds so funny that Yahtzee made a running joke of the bit. So what, we're supposed to ignore certain parts of words just because they make a worde looke a certain way?

Anyways, where was I? Oh yeah. Thanks for this review, Yahtzee, because I had played the demo and, like you, was quite sure that this was going to be a hack-n-guns-n-roses-lead-guitarist RPG, except with the standard sword replaced by a guitar, which I wholeheartedly support. However, several of my friends who have bought this game already have been telling me that there's more and more RTS as the game goes on, and this game is the final, crowning nugget of knowledge that has convinced me not to bother with it because I hate RTS games.

So, in a nutshell, good soundtrack, good voice acting, and somewhere in this game's concept is buried that standard Schafer brilliance that games like Psychonauts (rented it at Yahtzee's demand, and never regretted it) carried with them. I mean, who else would think of running around beating people up with bass guitars?

(except the Japanese. cookie for the reference.)
 

Naheal

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Sep 6, 2009
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Solid critique. The RTS elements really killed the game for me. Otherwise, it was fairly enjoyable in a bizarre metal fan base way.