Let’s just say straight up- if you like rock, and especially the harder side of the music- you will love the soundtrack. There’s over 100 songs (although you have to unlock some of them), from ‘mainstream’ tracks like ‘through the fire and flames’ to classics from Motorhead and Black Sabbath. For me, I was pleased to see my favourite genre, hair metal, represented with quite a few tracks from Def Leppard, Motley Crue, and Skid Row.

 

It’s varied and awesome stuff. But even better is the speech. With virtuoso performances from Jack Black, Lemmy, Ozzy Ozborne and other rock heroes, all with brilliantly funny performances, this is once of the best voiced and funniest games to come out in years.

 

 

Graphically, the game is by no means the most impressive title on the 360, but the visual style and art design is amazing. Jack Black’s character looks fantastic, is animated even better, and the whole thing just comes together. All of the other character design is also equally fabulous. Going for a kind of realistic-yet-cartoony style really paid off for Schafer’s small team. The world also looks pretty good- with loads of different environments, and some nice lighting and post-processing effects help to add atmosphere as you drive around the continent.

 

Whilst the game space itself is quite sparse, missing the towns you would expect from open world games, it always feels full of life thanks to roving Ironheade troops, the large number of side missions and other nice touches.

 

There is some pop-in, but less than in other similar games, and overall, I was very impressed with how the game looks- proving you don’t need to just have loads of brown and grey textures at the highest possible resolution in order to succeed on the 360!

 

 

Multiplayer is available as local, system link, or xbox live- but no matter what you use- it’s a two player deathmatch essentially, where you use your stage battle skills in order to duke it out on one of eight varied maps, most of which take inspiration from the single player stage battles. Your enjoyment of this mode will basically depend entirely on how much you enjoyed the stage battles.

 

 

There are plenty of people playing at least in matchmaking, so if you did enjoy them, you’ll find that you can get some good matches in at least. You also get the opportunity to play as the two other factions as well, which some people will enjoy- trying out their own special moves and units can be pretty neat!

 

 

Some people say that too many cooks spoil the broth. Some may also argue that too many gameplay styles may spoil the game! "Brütal Legend" nearly cocks it up by attempting to mash open world, driving, RTS and hack-n-slash elements into one package. Thankfully, tight balancing of unit types, reasonable controls, great art design and the fantastic audio save the project from disaster.

 

You probably need to have at least a passing interest in rock music for this to appeal to you, and it’s probably not quite as good or as long as I hoped for, but when Brutal Legend rocks you, it rocks you haaaaaaaaaaard!

 

 

 

 

+ Brilliant Story
+ Great Art Direction
+ Sound