If Brutal Legend knows one thing, then it’s how to rock. It’s got babes, hot rods, demons, gore, face-melting guitars, head-banging entourages, and of course a heavy emphasis on Norse mythology. This is not rock as we now know it, but its genesis. Rock and Roll was always about rebelling against the status quo and trying to make the world a better, more awesome place. What better way to do that than rid the world of demon through the power of heavy metal?
For the uninitiated, Brutal Legend is a third-person action-adventure game where you play as Eddie Riggs, a roadie voiced by the enigmatic Jack Black. Eddie gets sent back in time via a cursed belt buckle, which just so happens to be a demon, but instead of getting sent back to the past as we know it, he finds himself in a time when the gods of rock ruled the land with the awesome power of their, er, rocking. Unfortunately, said rock and roll fantasy land is being overrun by demons, and it’s your job to save everyone. Righteous!
The demo I was lucky enough to play began with Eddie being transported into this unholy yet awesome land atop a mountain of skeletons, where he gained his first two initial weapons; an axe and an enchanted guitar called Clementine. The ax came with standard heavy and light attacks, complete with suitably gory slow-motion finishing moves. With Clementine equipped Eddie was able to, as Patton Oswalt would say, “change the physical properties of things with the power of his rocking”, i.e. electrocute enemies. After dispatching a handful of red-hooded foes, I moved on to the first mini-boss, a tall nun-like demon who you’ve probably seen in the game’s trailers. After defeating her, I stole her vehicle that resembled a crab made out of metal and bones. Because it’s an unholy magical demon vehicle, Eddie had to pray to the demons above to grant it the strength to move, which laid the path for arguably the most hilarious monologue I’ve heard in a game since GLaDOS’s cries of despair towards the end of Portal.
