Brütal Legend
Alright, I take that back: Brütal Legend might have needed two more years in the studio. Despite having finished the story in under seven hours, I got pretty bored of the game's sidequests; which is much to its detriment, because the good writing and killer soundtrack can just barely compensate for the core gameplay.
I threw in the towel and dropped down to "Gentle" (easy) in the third-to-last stage battle, because I wasn't good enough at the game to get anywhere, and I didn't care to get better. I don't know if I needed more upgrades, or different tactics, or to work faster, or what -- I really have no idea. For all the complexity of its stage battle sequences, Brütal Legend does a really poor job of explaining them.
So, let's recap:
- A mini-map with pathfinding and sidequest tracking
- More sidequests, and more unique types of them
- A fuller story (I never even saw huge swaths of the game's world map)
- A more gradual and complete stage battle tutorial
- Real, honest-to-Ormagoden rebalancing; stage battle combat is too hard
- I shouldn't have to buy the radio (even for free), it should be in from the beginning
- Try for a solid frame-rate
- Fix the annoyingly visible bug where an old subtitle shows up briefly before being replaced by a new one
Then this game would be awesome.
As it is, Brütal Legend is a short, interesting, sometimes fun, but ultimately mediocre experiment.
Better than: CIMA: The Enemy
Not as good as: Pikmin
I wish: real radio was as good as this game's
Progress: Slew Tim Curry (on Gentle)