Brütal Legend

Brütal Legend is a video game that consists of 6 releases
Edit this Page

WRITE A REVIEW
31 user reviews
3.8 / 5 avg score
Reviewed on Oct. 13, 2009
The heavy metal fantasy world of Brutal Legend and the characters that populate it are far more well-realized and engaging than the ambitious-but-flawed gameplay.
Read Ryan Davis's full review
GB review 31 user reviews wiki
Recent Images News Videos Community Guides
The content below is entirely editable.
Tutorial Edit Article

Brütal Legend is a humorous heavy-metal, open-world, action-adventure game with light real-time strategy elements.

Overview

Ozzy Osbourne voices the Guardian of Metal, who allows you to upgrade your car and weapons with "fire tributes" that you aquire thoughout the game.
Ozzy Osbourne voices the Guardian of Metal, who allows you to upgrade your car and weapons with "fire tributes" that you aquire thoughout the game.
Brütal Legend is a heavy-metal-themed open-world action/adventure game by Psychonauts developer Double Fine, led by Tim Schafer, and published by EA for the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3. The game features the voice talents of Jack Black and rock legends Lemmy Kilmister, Rob Halford, Ozzy Osbourne, and Lita Ford.

The player directly controls Eddie Riggs from a third-person perspective. The player fights using Eddie's battle-axe and guitar, which is able to call forth lighting, pyrotechnics, and other special abilities.  Both the axe and guitar can be upgraded with special attributes as the game progresses.

Eddie also has a drop-top coupe named the Deuce (a.k.a Druid Plow) that he can use to travel the world (and run down enemies).  The Druid Plow can be upgraded over the course of the game.
 
As single player progresses, Eddie builds an increasingly large repertoire of unit types for his army, which he can command during missions and "stage battles."

The look of the game world was designed as an homage to heavy-metal album covers.
The look of the game world was designed as an homage to heavy-metal album covers.

Stage battles are watered-down RTS fights in which the player must harness the power of loyal fans to create units and attack the enemy's rock concert.  The RTS mechanics are intentionally simplified to encourage hands-on fighting, as opposed to sitting back and watching one's troops follow orders.
 
Multiplayer consists solely of stage battles, both 1-on-1 and 2-on-2 battles, with the players selecting from one of three factions.

Plot Summary

The game tells the story of a roadie named Eddie Riggs who, while working for a faux heavy metal band, is crushed by a collapsing set, causing his blood to fall onto his cursed belt buckle. The blood awakens the demonic spirit within, transporting him to a strange world of rock, where half-boar, half-motorcycle creatures roam the land, head-banging warriors smash their faces into foes, and forests of chrome exhaust pipes are the norm. There he meets Ophelia and siblings Lars and Lita Halford, and together they form a resistance movement against the corrupt demon tyrant Emperor Doviculus, and his glam-metal lackey, General Lionwhyte. 

Factions

There are four factions in the game, three of which are playable factions in multiplayer.
 
  • Ironheade - Eddie Riggs' faction.  They are the fast, fiery, hard-hitting human faction used throughout single player.
  • Hair Metal Militia - General Lionwhyte's faction.  They are a glam-rock reskin of Ironheade.  They are not selectable in multiplayer.
  • The Drowning Doom - Ophelia's faction.  A Gothic-themed faction, the Drowning Doom is a slower, physically weaker army that focuses heavily on various buff and debuff units, weakening enemies while strengthening their own troops.
  • The Tainted Coil - Emperor Doviculus' faction.  They are a demonic S&M faction.  The Tainted Coil specializes in "hierarchy" units that can create more units on the battlefield (as opposed to the other factions, which can only create units at their home stage).
 

Publisher Difficulties and Legal Problems

On July 28, 2008 Activision Blizzard released a statement that suggested the only Sierra games they would be publishing would include Prototype, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon, Ice Age and one unannounced title.  The statement said all other projects were being reviewed.  On July 29 Tim Schafer updated the "Double Fine Action News" blog stating "Brütal Legend is fine."  Schafer had mentioned previously that they would be showing more of the game off after E3 2008. Variety had reported that the game will not come from a traditional publisher and there is a "unique arrangement" for the game.

On December 12, 2008 Double Fine and EA announced a publishing deal that would see the game released in October 13, 2009.

On June 4th, 2009, Yahoo! reported that Activision was filing a lawsuit against Double Fine, stating that they had invested $15 million dollars in the game and that they still had a valid contract to release it, despite Double Fine switching their publisher to Electronic Arts. Tim Schafer responded by saying that Activision should have "put a ring on it". 

A countersuit was filed by Double Fine citing that the suit was malicious, done in an attempt to sink a competitor's product during a critical production phase.

Before the scheduled August 6th, 2009 ruling a settlement was reached between Activision and Electronic Arts and Double Fine.  Activision received reportedly minimal compensation in the agreement according to the LA Times, though the exact amount was not disclosed.  It is suggested in the linked article that Activision ended the suit in this matter to avoid losing the case.

Promotion

At the UK Download Festival 440 fans broke the Guinness World Record for “Most People Playing Air Guitar At One Time” to the tune of Motorhead’s “Ace of Spades" at the EA booth in order to promote Brutal Legend. The previous world record was 318 people set in 2008.   

Brutal Legend was the main game showed off at Spike TV's Video Game Awards 2008, where a trailer was shown of the game.  

Leading up to the release, the game was promoted by Jack Black on public TV shows such as the MTV VMA awards.  Jack Black appeared on Late Night with Jimmy Kimmel, while Tim Schafer appeared on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon before the game releases. 
 
There were also a number of viral marketing videos featuring Jack Black in a muscle suit pretending to have gotten so into the role of Eddie Riggs that he gained an absurd amount of muscle mass and became tougher.  In some cases Tim Schafer accompanied him to play along.  

 

Content Filter

Brütal Legend has a content filter, similar to the one in Gears of War 2.  Players have the option of censoring language and gore. The options will show up on screen in the first scene of the game with the option to change the content filter settings via the in-game pause menu.  Censoring language simply results in bleeping over obscenities, while the gore censor removes blood and slightly alters some cutscenes (for example: with the filter off characters may be decapitated, while the censor being on leaves them securely headed).

 

Pre-Order Bonuses

Retailers offered two different pre-order bonuses for Brütal Legend,  Gamestop & Gamestation (a UK gaming store) pre-orders rewarded customers a Tenacious D in-game guitar, replacing Eddie Riggs' guitar in multiplayer, and being selectable as a free guitar upgrade in single player, though only a superficial one.  Best-Buy pre-orders came with special packaging of the game in a vinyl sleeve similar to the one seen in the main menu of the game.
 
In addition, a Brutal Legend t-shirt was given to the first 666 people who pre-ordered the game through GameStop back when the title was being published by Sierra.


Soundtrack

Tim Schafer announced Brutal Legend's official soundtrack via a viral video.  In the video he solves a Rubik's cube while Emily Ridgeway, the game's Musical Director, reads the list of every band and song in the game. Schafer finished the Rubik's cube just on time. 
 
 There are a total of 107 songs on the track list.
 

Xbox 360 Hard Drive Install

Installing Brutal Legend on the hard drive takes up 5.9 GB of space.
We have 158 Brütal Legend images
Brütal Legend
General Information Edit
Game Name Brütal Legend
Platform(s)
Publisher(s)
Developer(s)
Genres
Add a new genre

Real-Time Strategy
Action-Adventure
Themes
Add a new theme

Fantasy
Comedy
Original US Release Oct. 13, 2009
need a fuzzy date?
Original US Release
Q3
2009
know the real date?
Aliases Brutal Legend
OFLC
OFLC: MA15+
BBFC
BBFC: 18
ESRB
ESRB: M
Top Rated Lists
Games That Help Define Badass
a list of 14 items by Romination
Interesting games
a list of 41 items by Icemael
Most Looked Forward to Games
a list of 7 items by mahoney23
Related Games Edit
We don't have any info about Brütal Legend's franchise games.
Related Pages Edit
Menu

Top Editors

MaddogMonty
1,122 points

ahoodedfigure
402 points

Fezz
356 points

Ignor
354 points

Cristoflanga
200 points


You are in Edit Mode. Make sure to save your work at the end!!
  • Submissions can take 24 hours to be moderated.
  • Please leave a comment to explain why you're making this change.
Save Changes Cancel