Headbanger’s ball

Brutal Legend is an unlikely game. It looks like the deranged love child of renegade ex-Pixar animators and the editors of Heavy Metal (part of this is in fact true), with maybe a hint of Tim Burton’s stylized aesthetic, as well as a bit of Tolkien.

Its universe is populated with fantasy beasts and environs paying homage to classic metal album artwork. Its soundtrack has everyone from Black Sabbath and Motorhead to Cradle of Filth, Iced Earth and Mastodon. It’s very entertaining, and what’s more, entirely unique. Metal fans will eat it up.

But what about non-metal listeners? Go ahead and throw up those devil horns—they’ll enjoy it too. Brutal Legend spares no expense in making fun of modern hardcore, emo-goth/industrial and whatever else, under the umbrella of just about every metal cultural and associated stereotype in existence.

It doesn’t hurt that the game isn’t like much of anything else you’ve played. This isn’t that unusual, given the game is the latest from Tim Schafer who made his name at LucasArts with point-and-clicks like the Monkey Island series, Grim Fandango and Full Throttle.

Like the rest of Schafer’s oeuvre, Brutal Legend sells itself on narrative, humor and personality. Jack Black plays Eddie, the world’s greatest roadie, who, after a slight mishap with the gods of metal, is transported to a living Boris Vallejo/Julie Bell painting, only more intentionally (and lovingly) hyperbolic and ridiculous.

As it turns out, the demons of the metal world have enslaved humanity and only Eddie can build up a legion capable of laying waste to the dark armies of their evil lord. During his quest, Eddie fights a giant metal spider to collect strings for Lemmy Kilmister’s bass, and Ozzy Osbourne himself puts in a turn as the Guardian of Metal.

There’s plenty of great, cartoonish violence, guitar solos, one-liners and headbanging. It’s probably the most bizarre game, or one of them, I’ve seen since Conker: Live and Reloaded. Basically, you never quite know what to expect in Brutal Legend, from the title screen onward—a quality that’s too rare in most games these days.

Even the gameplay is a surprise. When I first played the game at E3, it seemed like a straightforward hack and slasher, albeit one with a seriously unique art direction. Then there were the parts with Eddie in a metal hot rod.

What the demo didn’t show was that the game is actually a bizarre hybrid of real-time strategy (RTS), hack and slashing and vehicular manslaughter. Eddie’s ax and, uh, ax (as in guitar) combat and the open-world driving are pretty straightforward. But RTS? That was a surprise.

Then again, no one ever said holding the best metal show of all time (one would hope) wouldn’t kill armies of marauding demons. Essentially these stage battles work like any other kind of RTS—you can build your units, a mixture of band crew, personnel and metal-fantasy things—and send them out to crush the opposition, though you can still go in and cleave some skulls on your own if you wish.

Units are powered by the number of fans you have, and should the gods of rock bestow luck on your side, they will be plenty. The RTS segments can be a little tricky to navigate, however, and the unit-selection system isn’t as quick or intuitive as it could be, either.

But this is a minor setback in what is a pretty metal experience. And although Brutal Legend isn’t quite as funny as some of Schafer’s past games have been, it’s no less interesting or alive with its own vibrant sense of being. Where else can you ride a badass, fire-breathing metal beast into glorious battle?

There’s really no excuse not to try Brutal Legend. Just make sure to wipe that demon blood off the double bass before use.