Brütal Sändwich
I just finished playing Brütal Legend. I’m trying to decide whether or not I liked it.
Okay, that’s not true. I definitely liked it. But I didn’t love it. That’s not strictly true either.
I did love some of the game: I loved the writing, the voice acting, and the art. Double Fine hit these elements out of the park with Psychonauts, and it’s even better in BL. If there’s a sweet spot on the cartesian plane defined by the dimensions “whimsical” and “bad-ass,” that’s where Brütal Legend squarely plants its flag. It’s 100% hilarious joy to move around the landscape, discover new landmarks, and talk to new people.
But.
The gameplay? Could use some work. Allow me to illustrate with a diagram:
Three diagrams, actually. These are the key mapping diagrams from the BL manual. Yes, there are fully three separate button mappings: one for fighting on the ground, one for giving orders in “stage battles,” and one for driving around the world in Deuce (Eddie’s car). Add on top of that two different ways to initiate special attacks and buffs: brawler-esque button combos, or QTE-like timed button sequences. It’s bewildering, bordering on inaccessible.
The controls are this complex because BL isn’t just one game; it’s two (at least). And these two games don’t always work well together.
Here’s a sandwich metaphor.
Brütal Legend is a game mechanic sandwich with two different meats, meats that argue with one another. Let’s say the brawler is a turkey burger pattie, and the stage battles are lox. (The racing side quests could be a separate meat. Mortadella, maybe.)
The brawler is tasty on its own; it’s fun to run around and smash stuff with your axe. Like a turkey burger, it’s not as deep a sandwich experience as you might like, but it’s low in calories and generally satisfying. I can easily imagine an alternate universe Brütal Legend that is just an awesome open-world turkey brawler.
The stage battles, like lox, aren’t initially to everyone’s taste, and playing through the campaign doesn’t do a good job of selling you on them. The biggest problem, for me at least, is the overabundance of unit types. Although they’re introduced gradually, the game doesn’t successfully communicate their strengths and weaknesses, or how they work together. I never felt like I was really in control of the stage battles. The lox is either overseasoned or too sophisticated for my palate, and I can’t tell which.
(The Brütal Sändwich, pictured here without the turkey burger portion. It could be delicious. http://www.flickr.com/photos/nikchick/ / CC BY-SA 2.0)
You’re left with a sandwich that is quirky and interesting and fun to talk about. You’d see it on a menu, and you’d order it just to be contrarian or adventurous. When the sandwich arrives, you take a few bites, and you have your fun, but you’re left with the impression that the sandwich might have been better if they’d focused on either the turkey or the salmon, instead of trying to combine both.
The turkey suffers at the hand of the salmon; the salmon likewise at the hand of the turkey. You leave the sandwich unfinished.
In the end, I think that BL suffers from the same problem that Psychonauts suffered from: it’s a beautiful game world replete with interesting characters, weighed down by game mechanics that are in sore need of editing and refinement.
Let’s belabor the sandwich metaphor a bit further and say that I’m taking the game home in a doggie bag. I haven’t delved into the multiplayer portion much, but I’m willing to trust in the belief that it will become more fun with practice. (If anyone wants to play a round or two, let’s rumble.) I’m definitely headed back to find all of the “legends,” if only to get a glimpse of the beautiful woodcut-like art. I’m going to like the hell out of it, but I’m not going to love it.
—Adam
