My gaming habits have not changed much over the years. I continue to spend most of my time playing World of Warcraft (and occasionally beta testing other MMOs) and playing other games from time to time. This latter point is a point of shame and, often, frustration with me. I love video games as entertainment and art and have been blessed with a fairly powerful gaming PC. As a PC gamer I am often inundated with sales so low I'd be crazy not to buy them.

But then I never play them because I tend to play WoW or it's kin for a few hours each night and then tend to call it an evening.

I have a problem.

Every once in a while I achieve some semblance of sanity, however, and I choose something from my Steam library to put some time into. Recently the stars shone upon the semi-recent PC release/remastering of Tim Schafer's Brutal Legend. It is a game I know largely due to Giant Bomb's close relationship with Double Fine and due to the confusion and (maybe?) controversy surrounding the kind of game it is.

I went into the game with all this knowledge in hand. I still have not finished it and, from time to time, I wonder if I ever will.

It's a terrible shame because as a piece of artwork I find Brutal Legend to be completely captivating. I find the FMV intro to be amusing and unique, the landscape and theme of the world to be completely inspired and beautiful, and I find the soundtrack to really resonate with me and the nostalgia of a young man leaving his 20's. It's a shame the game just isn't super fun to play.

I've played stiff character action games before and dealt with it to a degree. I know that this isn't exactly the genre Brutal Legend might be characterized under... Not for long, anyway... But, man.

It didn't really help me much that my X360 controller either just doesn't work with the game well and/or it has a minor defect in the left trigger that makes Brutal Legend unplayable with the paddle plugged in. Mouse and keyboard is not the way I would want to play this game and I don't like it very much. Coincidentally the controls are even more frustrating when the main game mode kicks in, that being the RTS.

I don't like RTS games. I never have, really. Brutal Legend's RTS bits are simplified beyond belief but as a result they feel often completely chaotic and messy. I'm never really entirely sure what's happening on the field of battle and the fact that I have to constantly, physically move my avatar back and forth to gain the attention of my units (even though I actually do have a reticle and targeting system of sorts) is tiresome.

I don't really want to give up on this game because I want to see more of what the team at Double Fine put together and holy hell is the world they crafted right up my alley... I'm just feeling the urge to save and quit after only about fifteen minutes of gameplay per sit down.

Brutal Legend is like every album I've ever purchased. It attracted me with a beautiful cover and a single, beautiful song... But I find myself wishing I had just bought the single.

Maybe I'll finish it the 2013 way in the end.

YouTube.