Brutal Legend Review
Get your axe ready, it's time to rock
The game is largely open world, but in order to progress the story, Eddie must win various battles and defeat the bosses. However, this is not your usual boss fight. The second large part of the gameplay experience in Brutal Legend is actually a strategy game. Entitled “stage battles”, these are basically RTS matches that take place during the campaign. Stage acts as your home base, with a few mounted defenses if enemy forces get too close. There are various geysers spread around each map, which must be capped for control and to generate “fans”, the game’s resource for units. Having enough “fans” allows the player to build various units, just like in any strategy game, with different attacks and functions. Some units can also be upgraded to a newer version, if there are enough resources for the upgrade.
The control over all these units is given to Eddie, who can grow wings and fly over the battlefield. There are a few commands at your disposal while in the air, such as ordering the units to group up, attack a target, or move to a location you set previously. It gets clunky at times, since Eddie can only order units that are almost directly below him, requiring much flight time to gather everyone and get them moving in the desired direction. While in flight Eddie cannot be hit by enemy forces at all, so this lets you oversee the battle without worrying of taking damage.
However, should things become to turn sour, Eddie has the ability to drop to the ground and enter the fight. Here, all of the usual attacks from the free-roaming mode are still available. What’s new are the selection of solos – in stage battles, Eddie’s solos become completely combat-based and aimed at destroying enemy forces. There are healing solos, area-of-effect attacks, a solo to cap a resource geyser, and a solo to gather all your troops at the current location. While it’s a good option to have, ground combat quickly becomes very messy and you may die quickly – and why not, just imagine if you suddenly controlled a single unit during battle in your favorite PC RTS game.
If Eddie dies, he respawns quickly at the base and can resume battle. The game ends when the opposing base has been destroyed, and the AI often puts up a very good fight. The enemy can select from a variety of factions in the game, all with different units. They also have a leader character who, like Eddie, flies around the battlefield and can often be found on the ground, damaging your units and healing their own. As such, the player is often required to micromanage the troops, which isn’t a very pleasant task, given the limitations of the controller when playing a strategy game. Oftentimes, the battles become a deadlock, as you and the opposing AI are stuck fighting over the same resource geyser, constantly sending units to that rally point in hopes to hold or overtake it. The AI isn’t clever enough to go after any other resource points once this “deadlock” has been created somewhere on the map – giving the player an opportunity to send just a few units to capture a resource elsewhere. As it stands, the RTS gameplay in Brutal Legend is diverse and fresh but isn’t particularly deep or challenging. The AI can only put up a fight on higher difficulties, and even then it is because they create more units than you. Most other times, maps result in a deadlock, until one of the combatants can manage to overrun the other.
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