Brutal Legend Demo

[marnold]

I don't know if any of you XBox or PS3 folks snagged the Brutal Legend demo last week, but I did. I don't know if the core gameplay would necessarily grab me (although it's simplistically cool). The art style, music, and writing are awesome though. I found myself giggling like a schoolgirl repeatedly. While they do poke at the whole metal milieu, it is clearly a love letter to everything that is metal too. I don't think you have to be a metal fan to like it, but if you are a metal fan you will be far more inclined to like it.

[SuperSwede]

Downloading right now! :)

[deeaa]

Ok...good to know! Will download the demo now. Hope it's better than the new Batman Arkham one which I had high hopes for but turned out just a kickboxing game with combos and what not...whatta bore.

I just recently (past week really) bought a few games, namely Dead Space (boring scripted slaying that failed to scare me any despite the fame...yeah a lot of blood and organs flying but who's really scared by rubber face monsters and blood this day and age?) and Oblivion (seems OK after a few hours, it's like a watered-down and simplified precedessor of Fallout 3 - which it really is, I guess), and Fable 3, which also seems a pretty boring and simplified RPG, and FIFA which I might play with the kid although I hate sports in general...and also the Mass Effect one a little earlier...which seemed intriguing enough at first, but after 5 hours of playing and maybe 6-7 submissions completed starts to feel like just grinding through the 3rd grade shooting scenes to discover yet another clue to something just like the previous ones...

BUT there were a few clear winners; Trials HD was/is an excellent little game. The only problem is now that I've played it thru in easy, medium tracks and all but one hard track...well the rest of the tracks seem impossible suddenly. Still, along with Sploding Man it's best to come accross on Xbox since Fallout I guess.

I guess I just demand more from games than the average player, having played so many of them and so much ever since Wolf 3D first came out...I guess I must have played thousands of games. I remember back in the day when CD's came I already had well over 1000 games for PC...and when I worked as a games reviewer for a few years I'd get a new game or two every week for free anyway.

These days I only buy maybe 2 games a month in general...and try out as many demos maybe. But they are largely just videos or cutscreens, which I typically bypass if I can, I hate it when games are full of video cutscreens...I want to play, not look at some dumb computer graphic badly directed generic cutscreens.

Which reminds me to check when is Cod Modern Warfare 2 out on PC...can't play those type games on Xbox, it's just...too clumsy. Although I did force myself to play thru Cod 4 on both Xbox and PC and now still grinding thru Cod 3 on the box...but the online gaming should be good on PC, as usual!

[deeaa]

Heheh, that Brütal Legend demo sure rocked! Maybe a tad too rough for our 5-year-old to watch, but then again he's never been scared of monsters, skeletons, dark and such, he knows they're just fun and games and not real and skeletons are just what remains of animals and humans when they die. The intro 'metal monster' kinda widened his eyes, but I watched him closely and could see he was just thrilled, not scared. However, I try to not let him watch anything clearly violent like old Hanna-Barbera cartoons, and this was sort of violent, but since the opponents were clearly comic characters and the hits are sort of non-real-life type I let him watch a while.

Anyway, it was quite fun, honestly tongue-in-cheek and good playability, smooth. Might even consider getting the full deal some day...when it gets a tad cheaper. I never buy games when they first appear, because they're so damned expensive...70-80 bucks is not uncommon. And a year later you can get them for 29,90 and with any luck, even 10-15 bucks like I've bought most of my games for.

[hagarfreak33]

Love it! I like and Hate Jack Black at the same time:)

[deeaa]

BTW while we're talking console gaming, I just bought a pretty nice, cheap console flying game, Blazing Angels II Secret Weapons of Luftwaffe. Very nice. Of course it is a far cry from a real flight sim, don't expect that as 90% of the time the planes fly like on rails and for instance don't lose any altitude or change direction ANY when banking hard, so it's strictly arcade even with 'simulator' flight controls selected.

But anyhow, it was surprisingly entertaining, took me 3-4 sessions to play it all the way through with Ace achievements, a good 5-6 hours I think, which is more I expected for a 10-dollar bargain bin game. Clearly in or near the top ten in Xbox games for entertainment value, and OK even for young players.

Today I got me a PC game for a change, 'Cryostasis' which is alike the Penumbra series (which I liked) and also another horror/survival/adventure game I forget the name but happens on an icy ship...cold something. Anyway, I hear it's pretty good. I love a good horror/adventure game but these days they are usually reduced to just simple splatter á la Resident Evil and Dead Space etc. with no suspense left whatsoever, just sudden scares and pixel blood aplenty. Although I'm not averse to gore - I liked the Condemned series a lot indeed and boy they are brutal games well worth the 18 years age limit. But still, Penumbra Overture for instance has practically no violence or any gore (not even weapons to speak of) and it's still ten times scarier than any of these 'horror' shooters, which IMO is very nice. There's enough violence in the world already I sometimes feel it may not be so sensible to even allow games like Condemned etc.

I've had my eye on Silent Hill series which could be pretty entertaining and even scary, but alas, never seen any in the bargain bins...hm, I guess I need to go find some reviews to figure out if they'd be worth more.

[deeaa]

BTW just played the first hour and half of Cryostasis, not bad at all. Pretty much exactly a combination of Condemned (fistfighting, different hits/parry possible) and Penumbra (not just fighting but lots of small puzzles and interesting mood and settings/adventure).

I suppose I'll have to play this thru the next couple of nights to see how the story of the stranded and monster-ridden icebreaker unfolds.

Pretty graphics, but rather heavy demands on the machine.

[marnold]

I ended up buying the full version of Brutal Legend. The first couple of play-throughs I wasn't sure what to make of it. Now that I've played it a bit more, it's really growing on me. I didn't know if I'd like the whole open-world thing but it's really fun, even if the extra mini-quests are somewhat repetitive. For me the big thing is the soundtrack. Quite a varied collection of metal spanning different sub-genres. If they released the soundtrack separately I'd buy it in a heartbeat.

I've played some the RTS battles. My only complaint is that it's often hard to tell who is on your side and who is on the other side other than subtle changes in coloring. A simple solution is to try to kill everything. If it dies, it was your enemy :) The "Facemelter" solo that literally melts the faces of your enemies totally 0wns.

[deeaa]

How do you mean, open world? Is the full game not totally scripted like the demo from one scene to another but free to roam and find the next quest? Or do you mean multiplayer?

I'm always on the look for games that would offer somewhat free roaming of the game area and explore and such at your own pace, like Fallout 3. Of such games I'm currently playing Oblivion and Mass Effect which tend to get a bit too boring and grinding (on both the actual fighting and such is a mere nuisance and not fun at all, I wish I could just skip the umpteenth clumsy fight exactly alike the previous one and just get on with the game plot) so I try to advance only now and then.

Currently I'm playing Cryostasis (I guess an ok game) and Call of Cthulhu (PC) which is pretty good but has almost too much movie-type storytelling parts and chatter. Well I'm also halfway thru Stalker: Clear Sky (PC, too bloody hard to advance all of a sudden, I'd need to load from way back to continue) and Bioshock (just got bored with it...got repetitive with nothing new happening in a long while....same as with Call of Duty 3 and Gears of War and Prey. I try to play them a little now and zen but don't seem to be able to immerse myself in 'em.

Damn, I wish Fallout 4 would come soon...sigh, I guess I need to restart Stalker:Clear Sky from a little ways back...it's a great game only damn hard and also a bit buggy to point of frustration at times.

[marnold]

How do you mean, open world? Is the full game not totally scripted like the demo from one scene to another but free to roam and find the next quest? Or do you mean multiplayer?
Here's how it's setup. If you played the demo, it ends right as you enter the open world. Your map indicates where you need to go for the next main part of the story. But you do not have to go there immediately. You can hop in the Deuce (your car) and drive around the whole world. In various places you can unlock new songs, new solos for battle, upgrade garages (with upgrades being sold by Ozzy), some of the back story, etc. There are also mini-quests that include races, ambushes, hunting, etc. I particularly liked one race where you had to get kegs of beer to the beach party before they got warm. If you shook the kegs up too much (by hitting too many bumps, etc.), the kegs would explode and you'd lose.

Once you start the next story quest, you have to play through it, then you can either go to the next story quest or cruise around the world some more.

[deeaa]

I see..cool, thanks. I'll have to start keeping an eye out for it used, then!