What Was Wrong With Brutal Legend?

For Christmas 2009, I received a shiny Xbox 360 and a stack of games - some pretty cool ones, some pretty average ones - and one I'd seen dancing about on the Internet a lot at the time, Brutal Legend.

I'm a massive fan of heavy metal - ever since I was a kid - I grew up listening to hard rock in my dad's car, 70s bands like Rainbow, ZZTop, Deep Purple and Whitesnake. When I discovered the joy of Limewire and Bearshare in my early teens, I discovered Slipknot, Cannibal Corpse and Rammstein - and then bought all of their albums - see, I rectified my piracy!

Heavy metal is still the soundtrack to my life - or any kind of metal, rock and punk to be fair - my wardrobe still consists of mainly band t-shirts and I still enjoy the odd headbanging session when I get the freedom to blast some music when I'm home alone.

Given this, it's no surprise that Brutal Legend appealed to me. Granted, I can't stand Jack Black - I like Tenacious D, but I cannot abide him as an “actor,” he grates on me something chronic.

From what I'd seen of Brutal Legend, it looked like a fun sandbox hack and slash based around heavy metal culture - with lots of cameos by awesome musicians, tons of references and homages and of course, a great soundtrack.

So imagine my disappointment as I gradually progressed through the game and all of the fun exploring at leisure and finding hidden collectables was buried under a mountain of God damn REAL TIME STRATEGY.

RTS is one of the genres that divides gamers - you either like them or they make you want to pull out your back molars with a pair of rusty pliers. Guess which side I'm on?

RTS bores me to tears - the only ones I can tolerate are tower defence style games, and even then I only really like the silly ones like Plants VS Zombies and South Park: Let's Go Tower Defence Play. And I'm not sure what it is that puts me off RTS games - I've given them a go multiple times throughout my life, starting early with the Asterix themed one on the PS1 - which at least had the deceny to break up the monotony with a handful of naff platforming sections. Jesus Christ; I still have flashbacks to the endless pouring of magic potions into Gaul and the constant deployment of cheaty scumbag Roman soldiers.

The main problem with Brutal Legend is that it hid it's RTS core from us. The trailers painted an image of explorative sandbox loveliness - it's like you went on a date with someone who claimed to hate One Direction but upon arriving to their place for “coffee,” it was served in mugs shaped like Harry Styles hair, then you were invited to a romp on their 1D bedsheets with a teeny bopper soundtrack.

The developers of Brutal Legend KNEW that if they blatantly told us it was an RTS, they'd immediately eliminate over half of their potential audience. So they tricked us, and we were starry eyed and stupid enough to fall for it. And I personally don't enjoy being tricked into doing things I'm uncomfortable with (see previous paragraph.)

If I ever figure out why RTS isn't for me, I'll let you know - but for the time being all you need to know is I don't like them and I DO like heavy metal inspired hack and slash sandboxes - or I would, if Brutal Legend had actually given me one...