E3: Brutal Legend Hands On

As those of you who've been following our Twitter feeds know, Brutal Legend is one of the major titles I've been jonesing to play. And play it I did! Thankfully, it seems to live up to my expectations.

Ive been a fan of Tim Schafer's stuff for years, so it was great to see his trademark humour and style in full force right from the outset. You should probably know the deal by now, but to briefly recap: roadie Eddie Riggs has been transported to a land where metal and rock truly come alive. Guitars have magical powers. Mountains of skulls adorn the landscape. Creepy druids try to kill you. Basically just the usual stuff.

I played through the opening scenes of the game, which give you a good taste of what to expect - although I'm aware there's a hell of a lot I haven't experienced yet. The tight opening sequence serves as a good introduction before letting you loose on the game's open world. Pretty soon I was slaying druids with my giant axe, and electrocuting them with my magical guitar. Everyone loves a magical guitar that shoots lightning! It's also worth pointing out how bloody this game is - you'll be beheading demon druids left, right, and centre, with bloody and body parts flying all over the place. This seemed rather appropriate given the skull mountain I was fighting on top of.

The action moves onto a couple of driving scenes, as well as an introductory boss fight or two. All through this is the voice of Jack Black, constantly commenting on things. It certainly adds a lot to the action - it'd be a dull game without it - and combines well with the chuckle-inducing cutscenes. If the narrative delivery and storyline continue to be this top notch, gamers should be in for a treat.

I'm heaping praise on this thing, but that's because it simply lived up to my high expectations. As it stands, Brutal Legend is looking tight and fun - while at its core it's a simple third-person action adventure game, all the various things layered on top (both story and gameplay-wise) add a hell of a lot to it. I have only two fears: that the combat might get repetitive later on unless things are mixed up, and that there could be too many gameplay elements to the game. I think that Double Fine's last game, Psychonauts, suffered a little from the 'kitchen sink' syndrome, so I'm really hoping the designers have maintained a tight focus here. But what I've seen looks promising so far!

The game is out in the middle of October (or Rocktober, if you will), and will definitely be worth checking out. Oh yeah, and in case you missed it, Ozzy Osbourne has been announced as a voice actor - and his in-game self looks just like the crazy nutter as well.

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