It’s a universal fact that you either love or hate Jack Black. Yes, I know. It’s hard to accept that some people may not appreciate his brand of over-playing the rocker stereotype comedy. Personally I think he’s amazing. Then again, a friend of mine totally detests him and everything about him and what he stands for. Luckily, however, you don’t have to love Jack Black to love Brutal Legend.

This may shock you, and if it does then I’m glad, because I succeeded in what I set out to do. So yes, Jack Black is the voice of the main character, Eddie Riggs. Everything he says sounds like it was tailor-made for Jack to say. Hell, he turns up in the pre-main menu cutscene. But here it works. The whole game screams “metal stereotype”, and who else could pull that off than the very man who personifies that stereotype?

This is great news for the game, because humor is definitely the key here. Set in a land in the distant past, where the power of metal controls everything, monuments of guitars sprout from the ground and seagulls are made out of microphones, it would be hard to take this seriously. Tongue is planted firmly in cheek with places such as Bladehenge, the Screaming Wall (a giant wall extending out into the sea made entirely out of amps) and even a sort of hell that contains a very useful Ozzy Osbourne. Thankfully though, the game doesn’t throw this in your face and plead with you to laugh, instead taking itself so seriously that it’s hilarious. And of course, Eddie Riggs is there to crack a few jokes every now and then.

Gameplay in this game is simplistic but effective. It presents itself as a sandbox game, with a relatively small environment to explore, complete with landmarks to find and side missions to do. Combat is split between the A and X buttons, which control attacks from your axe and guitar (which when played strikes enemies with lightning or fire) respectively. These can be mixed up to unleash some cool combos, or if you’re feeling particularly cool, you can bust out a solo that can be devastating to the enemy (a personal favorite is the Facemelter, which when played literally melts the faces off every enemy in the vicinity). And naturally, you can upgrade these abilities with a little help from Ozzy.

However, as you progress through the game you’ll find a murky truth lying underneath the free-roaming gameplay. If you’re not prepared it’ll come at you like a slap in the face, and it’s a real stinger. The truth is…

Brutal Legend is an RTS.

Of course, designer Tim Schafer is quick to point out that it’s not strictly an RTS. I mean, sure, you collect resources, but to do this you play a crazy guitar solo that miraculously builds a Merchandise Stand. And you do have to spawn in units and control them across the battlefield, but the focus is more on the special Double Team attacks that you can do with your units. So technically it’s an action game with RTS elements, but all the same… consider yourself warned. If you think that the demo was representative of the game as a whole, you’re dead wrong. Not that it matters, as the RTS element is done brilliantly, and is possibly the strongest part of the gameplay.

Graphically, Brutal Legend isn’t going to win any awards, but the concept behind it is fantastic. Everything is designed around heavy metal album covers and lyrics, and you can see that the artists have really put a lot of effort into making this the most metal game ever. There can be a little bit of slowdown at times, but it mostly goes by unnoticed, and there is a fair bit of pop-up, but nothing too annoying. And naturally, there’s a ton of gore, which is always pretty and colorful.

The sound, on the other hand, is fantastic. Brutal Legend features a tracklist of 108 songs, selected from some of the best metal bands ever and spanning almost every imaginable sub-genre of metal. Voice acting is excellent across the board, except maybe Lita Ford, whose voice feels a little wooden compared to the enthusiastic performances given by Jack, Ozzy, Rob Halford, Lemmy and even a surprise appearance of Kyle Gass.

Now, some of you may not know this, but Brutal Legend began life as a multiplayer game. With that in mind, you’d expect the multiplayer to be fantastic, and Brutal Legend delivers… to an extent. The multiplayer itself is a lot of fun. The Stage Battles from the main story are taken and given two teams of human players, with up to 4 people on each team. You can choose between Ironheade (who are good to begin with, since you’ve used them throughout the campaign), Drowning Doom (who focus more on buffing and debuffing attributes to gain an advantage) and the Tainted Coil (who are just… wrong), each with their own strengths and weaknesses, helping make things more interesting. The one problem I have relates purely to the online, where lag is very much an annoyance, to the point at which solos are nearly unplayable, and matchmaking doesn’t quite work. My first ever game, I went against a guy whose Trueskill was 19, compared to my 1, which (as I’m sure you can expect) led to me being crushed. It can often take a while to get a match, but this could be down to people not having the game yet.

Which is a shame, because Brutal Legend is a game that everyone should try. It’s a fantastic blend of metal, RTS and hilarity, and where it fails in some places, it manages to balance it out with a great story, fantastic voice work and one of the best tracklists ever conceived. Buy this if you’re a fan of Jack Black, metal, or just want to see a console RTS that works as well as it can.

Score: 8/10