Brütal Legend

Brütal Legend is set in a charmingly imaginative world, and is filled with great writing and funny character interactions. The presentation suits it well, with facial animations that are very human, just exaggerated enough for dramatic and comedic effect. And it's remarkable how well the voice acting works, especially when it includes real luminaries of metal and rock music. It's kind of a shame, though, that the gameplay doesn't measure up.

Solo play is fun enough -- as I saw in the demo, the simple combo system is fresh enough to be interesting, but also familiar enough to easily get into. Driving doesn't work as well as I remember it, but is workable, and there's plenty of wildlife to decimate with the Druid Plow. The overworld map, though, is a bit too scenic for its own good; you can set a waypoint, but the game isn't very helpful in getting you there (turn signals on the car are a neat aesthetic touch, but extremely unclear from a navigational standpoint).

And where it really gets awkward is in the army command mechanics. I'd be happy to just slay stuff with my own axe and magic powers, but the legion of headbangers that follows me around the field is a little difficult to manage properly -- and it's hard to tell when they're actually being effective, or when they're dying in droves. I worry that I may be forced to rely more heavily on these jokers later on, and the controls and HUD really aren't up to it.

Nevertheless, as long as Brütal Legend doesn't get frustratingly difficult, I intend to see it through just for the story and writing's sake.

Progress: Slew the chrome spider queen