Brütal Legend: The flopped masterpiece was Metal Pu

Even sworn fans will have to admit that brutal legend was not perfect. It had his problems, the open world, the driving sequences, the bosses, the notorious strategy part. And yet: I think the game for a mischievous gem. One, perhaps no absolute top ratings, but at least much more attention would have earned. Why brutal legend has not given a new edition, I will never understand: as at the first psychonaut, which soon receives his deserved sequel, would also be a brood legend remastered long overdue!

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Flop with cult character

12 years ago, Double Fine has delivered his second and largest work so far. Brütal Legend was ambitious, passionate, gorgeous creative - and it had a deafening soundtrack that seeks its kind. The sales figures disappointed anyway. It may also be due to its moving history: Brütal Legend was dropped during the development of Publisher Activision, later picked up from EA and had to fight through an ugly legal dispute. This caused negative headlines, which could hardly be accused of the game, but his image were barely helpful. Above all, however, the marketing failed: Despite benevolent previews, gigantic soundtrack and a lot of Starpower did not succeed the person in charge of the target group, why brutal legend was more than only another colorful action adventure.

Declaration of love to the rock music: the main menu of Brütal Legend Source: PC Games Actually, a few minutes in the main menu were enough to know that brutal was different. After a short intro video with actor Jack Black (which also sets the main character in the game) I land in a filmed menu that consists only of a record that lies on a table. Hands open doped the wonderfully designed paper case, turn on the push of a button, pull out the LP, underpin by carpenting rock music. So you build mood! And it creates memories that burn out: For me, Brütal Legend has one of the most beautiful main menus ever.

More Metal does not work!

Brütal Legend (Buy Now 29.90 €) goes back to a concept, the Tim Schaerer carried around many years with her. The story is about the Roadie Eddie Rigg, which is transported by an accident into a crazy fantasy world. Double Fine has staged the setting like a playful record cover: Gigantic statues in guitar shape line the landscape, chrome and flames almost every scene. In this world, rock music is pure strength and magic, who puts the string of a guitar here, puts opponents on fire or lets flashes twitch. The casual Eddie feels at home: with charm, joke and a powerful ax, the stocky Roadie cherishly beats up by demonic opponents, forabols on the way allies and finally takes it on with a demonic Oberg, who suppressed people. Creative design, cool ideas and a crazy soundtrack make brotherly playing gently today. Source: PC Games

Full Star Power

In the intro of the game, Jack Black, who presents us a magical record. Source: PC Games Not only the story itself is gorgeous, even the figures convince all the line: Eddie is spoken by Jack Black, the perfect role for the actor (King Kong, School of Rock) and Musicians (Tenacious D), the Here is a gloss performance. On the way Eddie also meets wonderfully cranky characters, for which Double Fine could move well-known speakers to land: The casual kill master is spoken by Motörhead legend Lemmy Kilmister, Rob Halford (Judas Priest) embodies the insanely hairy Glam-Metal rogue Lionwhyte and Ozzy Osbourne lays an astrone performance as a sheller Guardian of Metal. Jack Blacks Band Cum Kumbel Kyle Gass (Tenacious D) has a guest appearance, Tim Curry (Rocky Horror Picture Show) mimert the Diabolian Demon Doviculus and the popular Jennifer Hale (Mass Effect) speaks Ophelia, in which Eddie's neck falls in love with head. Double Fine does not just leave themselves on big names: The dialogues are first class written and spraying at charm and joke. The Cutscenes are in nothing, they are cut and cleanly staged, that makes a lot of fun today.

The comic look of the game is also aimed primary, as Double Fine has already left less on modern graphic features, but to a coherent design. So the characters still make something, because for the faces Double Fine was a real expert manner: Tasha Sounart had previously worked at Pixar and was there for the animations in films such as Toy Story 2, Monsters, Inc. or finds Nemo responsible . For Brütal Legend she missed the characters expressive facial expressions, which, despite the obsolete technology, still released very well. The facial expressions of the characters can also be absolutely seen. Source: PC Games

Game me the facemelter

As fantastic the atmosphere was too, the gameplay could not hide a few deficits. For example, the boss fights looked great, but played a bit hakely and inaccurate. Also Eddie's weapons - an ax and a lightning spit guitar - were cool, but in the long run a little bit. Although a mini-name in the Guitar hero style one could spell out a few spells that opens the opponents in the area shortly the face, but that too was noticeable after a while. In contrast to psychonauts, Brütal was not a platform, so there were no skill deposits that had loosened the events. Several times Eddie's crew must boost the tour bus through the landscape while wandering attackers. Source: PC Games instead there was a car. And what kind of one! Eddie screws his cart himself together, lightning-blank chromium, skull, huge exhaust pipes, out of which flames shoot out - the TÜV would have said no. The cart has her big performances when Eddie's crew has to be taken by a place to the next nozzle with the tour bus and attacked on the way from demonic motorcyclists. There are also several great staged curse sequences, in which you are shaped by senses through a specified route. These sections are extremely atmospheric, but hardly forgive errors. Whoever remains somewhere, must repeat the sequence.

Great ideas in empty Open World

After a few hours, Eddie will then be released into the open game world, which can only be explored by the car. The ghosts are divorced to her: some love the feeling of boards through these wonderfully stylized landscapes that are crammed with metal symbolism and collecting stuff, with which you can improve eddie's equipment and unlock new pieces of music. Others just find the world too empty and lifeless, as there are hardly any adverse characters and additional stories to discover. Even the driving feeling leaves something to be desired again and again; Although of course you could not expect a full racing game, the Open World Concept is easy after a while.

The main quest series shines for this with fantastic moments, which also releases the Open World exploration easily again: For example, you have to caught a huge metal spider to harvest your chrome silk, with the Lemmy can capture its healing bass. Or a mine is storming in which adorable-doofe headbanger is held as slave workers who smash the rock with their gigantic skulls. The faithful Headbanger combines Eddie to a powerful troupe. Source: PC Games

Real-time strategy: The Stage Battles

And then there is still the special moments that Brütal Legend far from the unit powers: the Stage Battles. These are special battles against a larger demon army, which are constructed according to the principle of a real-time strategy game. Professional Eddie can apply His whole here: his crew headed to build a stage, serves as a commissioning center and must be defended by any price. Fanardic shops are then built on soul sources to tap the energies of the Metal-disciples - in this way currency reaches the player account. Then you invest in troops set up according to the scissor stone paper principle: motorcyclists, headbanger, sniper or roadies that haul gigantic speakers on their backs with which they surround enemies from afar with fatal feedback waves.

Almost every unit has a combo action, because of course, eddie also mixes even in the stage battles: At the push of a button, he mixes, for example, under a group of headbanger and then pitches a swine into the enemy ranks as all down the moshpit. Thanks to its demonic wings, Eddie can also fly away from the battlefield at lightning speed, which usually looks at the events from above and keeps the overview. The strategic fights work, but will be quickly monotonous. Source: PC Games The RTS battles play chaotic, have little tactical draft - but they work. However, the nerve of many players did not meet at that time, which was synonymous with that many in the beginning did not know anything about them: Double Fine had revealed the feature before release, but that did not seem like that. The playable demo also showed nothing about it. An error as the developers later encourage themselves. The Stage Battles represented the complete multiplayer mode in which the players could choose from several factions and compete against each other. So there has been a lot of development time, which ultimately has not paid out: Brütal Legends Multiplayer could not build a permanent community and put it as fast as he had come. This is also tragic because the entire game was originally designed as a real-time strategy title with a high action content. The change to the Open World Action Adventure was only completed in the course of development. Thanks to wings MAN retains the overview Source: PC Games This is brutal legend a game that may have tried too much suddenly: Epic story, action struggles, open-world exploration, racing game, real-time strategy und multiplayer - that would have So many team overwhelmed. Double Fine, on the other hand, did it actually managed to get everything under a hat _And to tell a good story with great characters. From the wrong design and the hammer soundtrack sometimes silent. I think: this is a madness performance that was not appreciated enough.

Double Fine: The (preliminary) end of AAA production

Ozzy Osbourne, as Guardian of Metal, delivers a gorgeous performance. Source: PC Games for Double Fine was afterwards but then finish with the big titles: Brütal Legend got good reviews, but did not hit the way it had been hoping. The later published PC version made the game accessible to a broader mass and today it is also included in the Xbox Game Pass, but there was neverths to a cult hit. A planned successor was scanced. Double Fine focused instead on smaller games developed in parallel by multiple teams: There were oblique titles such as Stacking, Iron Brigade or Costume Quest, one tried to other genres, created three great Remaster versions of Lucas-Arts classics, Literally redefined kickstarter overnight new. Whether with round tactics (massive chalice), Adventure (The Cave), Rogue-Like (Rad), Kinect Titles (Once Upon A Monster), Mobile Strategy (Middle Manager of Justice) or VR Adventure (Psychonauts in The Rhombus Of Ruin) - Double Fine barely left a chance to collect new experiences and finance myself on her legs. By playing in the format of a brood legend, Tim Schaer's team, however, left his fingers.

To date. Psychonauts 2 is the first major project of the studio since I am brooding with Eddie Riggs through his fantastic metal world. And it looks fantastic - here you get fresh impressions of the creative action adventure. I really hope that it will find his clientele this time. That Double Fine, who belong to Microsoft today, rediscover their old strengths. That your heart is still so burning for Metal as 12 years ago.

In short, I still hope brutal legend 2. It would be damned again at the time.

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From Felix Schütz editor 07.08.2021 at 10:06

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