Brütal Legend

Since the game was announced, something like two years ago now, my attitude toward Brütal Legend could best be described as wary intrigue. Sure, Tim Schafer is a fine piece of development pedigree, but a beat-em-up in a setting inspired by a genre of music? Well, the demo is on Xbox Live now, and after playing it I've changed my stance to lukewarm interest.

The game world is very finely crafted; even the brief demo shows off some richly imaginative creatures and environments. A big draw is Jack Black's commendable voice acting - which, combined with a seemingly endless amount of witty dialog, is a very good thing. Still, there were some parts of the presentation I felt fell flat, notably the character animation in cutscenes and the female sidekick's dialog.

Brütal Legend's hand-to-hand combat feels somewhat fresh, at least as far as the demo went with it. By no means does it revolutionize the action-combat game, but in the current deluge of God of War knock-offs, Brütal Legend's creative moves and simple controls do stand out.

What really caught my eye in the demo, though, was the vehicular manslaughter segment. I maintain more than a passing interest in the sport of cars-versus-pedestrians, and the driving section of the Brütal Legend demo did not disappoint! Eddie Riggs's "customizable hot rod" is a box-cover bullet point, so I'm hopeful that the full game's implementation can continue to satisfy.

The demo shows promise, but I guess I'm still not sold on the whole concept coming together. We'll see how it fares in the review trenches come Rocktober 13th.

Oh yeah - in the demo at least, there was no health bar. Which is great for a clean interface, but I had no idea if I was about to die. Hopefully there's something I'm missing here, else unexpected deaths could get pretty frustrating pretty fast.

Progress: Gave Up -- Played the demo