Brütal Legend

The more we preview Brütal Legend, the more we seem to be falling in love with it. Well, what’s not to like? Taking its inspiration from that period in your youth when heavy metal is the best music in the world, there are enough references and iconology to satisfy even the speediest of speed-garage-death metal fetishists and even fans of the pompous Eighties hair bands. And it’s all wrapped up with some lovely humour and metal mythology that anyone who has ever watched a countdown of the 100 best metal bands on VH1 will appreciate.

What’s surprising us about Brütal Legend recently is the number of real metal icons that Double Fine has persuaded to jump on board and add a bit of authenticity to Eddie Riggs’ journey through the massive rockopolis in the game. So not only do you have moley bassist from Motörhead Lemmy Kilmister playing the Killmaster (who actually heals people as a sort of doctor), but there is also an appearance by Judas Priest and Fight frontman and greatest screamer in metal ever, Rob Halford, who plays the leader of a rival faction that is obsessed with hair metal. In fact, Halford’s character in Brütal Legend has such amazing hair that he can use it to fly.

Then, of course, there’s Lita Ford, who appeared on many a poster ripped out of Kerrang! and hung on teenagers’ walls. She was the queen of metal during the Eighties and has recently made a bit of a comeback. But the big news announced at E3 was that Ozzy Osbourne is joining the cast, and when he first appears he’s surrounded by lava and swearing his mouth off. Rock!

The playable demo at E3 gave everyone their first chance to see exactly how Brütal Legend works, and how Eddie’s combination of guitar and axe work together to defeat the evil enemies in the rockiest title outside of Guitar Hero. The axe (called the Separator) has few combos to begin with, but this is upgradeable throughout the game, and it’s great for cleaving limbs and heads off enemies. The guitar is named Clementine, and while the axe normally handles the short-range attacks, Clementine deals with long-range electricity attacks and even some explosive pyrotechnics that work as launcher attacks. The weapons can be used to create combo attacks – a quick three-hit one ends with Eddie swinging the axe like it’s a baseball bat and can take enemies’ heads off with ease. Eddie also has a great attack that can cause earthquakes. By holding down A + X, Eddie will jump up and come crashing down, and the resulting shockwave not only destroys enemies but the scenery as well.

You find both these weapons pretty close to the start of the game, and then you also find Eddie’s ride, a hot rod called The Deuce, which can also be upgraded with various equipment such as a Gatling gun, a cow-catcher for running enemies over and even flaming exhausts to fry other drivers out in the world. There was also a nifty boss battle to show off the abilities of the hot rod that involved being chased by a massive worm thing, but with some driving skill it soon goes down.

The soundtrack, if all the licensing problems get sorted out, will include such metal classics as Anthrax's Metal Thrashing Mad, Black Sabbath's Symptom Of The Universe, and Motley Crüe's Kickstart My Heart. Which will please any metal fan and, of course, it accompanies the gameplay so well.