In one of the most original openings to a video game I can remember, Jack Black’s  performance of Eddie Riggs was the perfect celebrity to promote Tim Schafer’s Brütal Legend.  Previously working for LucasArts on titles such as Monkey Island, Grim Fandango and Day of The Tentacle with also a passion for music allowed EA to fully back Schafer with this “fantasy world” of a heavy metal video game.  The introduction crosses over from video to video game and uses a vinyl record as it’s cover as the menu.  Very cool!  We’ve all seen cheesy transitional videos, but Double Fine’s transfer is seamless and done in Rock Fashion.  Will Jack Blacks performance convince you comedians CAN be funny in video games? Hell F-in Yes!

The road to being a Roadie. You play Eddie Riggs (voiced by Jack Black), and you’re a roadie for a band called Kabbage Boy. A gruesome accident causes the pyrotechnic performance to stop (I always thought the show must go on) and as you were trying to save the band, you fall below the broken down stage. Blood gets into your Silver skull belt buckle and that’s when the chaos begins. You enter a hellish Metal world filled based off Heavy Metal album art covers.  Your job is to save humanity from the demons who have enslaved them.  Jack Blacks mannerisms carry over identically into the character Eddie Riggs. He’s hysterical! I did experience some issues with the audio track where it felt empty at times and untimely conversations between Eddie and other main characters during cutscenes made it awkward.

Censored Vulgarity… if you want. For those who are squeamish to blood or are easily offended, Buzz Off!  But EA does have a soul and have incorporated the “less than realistic” option to have the cussing beeped and the gore minimized to just scrapes and nose bleeds.  Come on gamers, I don’t know of one person who’d “prefer” that especially since the game is rated “M”.

Full Throttle ahead. LucasArts Games fans will appreciate Brutal Legend for it’s resemblance to 1995 point-and-click action game, Full Throttle.  The use of motorcycles, Eddie’s kick ass approach and willing to risk it all give fond memories of Full Throttle’s main character, Ben.  Eddie Riggs is equipped with two primary weapons.  A kick ass Battle-Axe and Flying V guitar named Clementine.  The axe pretty much obliterates anything in front of you and the guitar shocks the crap out of your enemy by lightning bolts or strumming a tune that blows them up.

Brütal Hero. Playing Solo’s in front of Relics reminds me of a Guitar type game where you press the button at the same time the screen highlights the button.  Now what’s the name of that game again?  Anyway, you’re shown a music sheet where you play the notes. The point is to raise these relics which can be openings to Motor Forge etc.

Lit waypoints leads your way. Pressing select opens your map for points of interest and while keeping those areas untraveled black. The waypoints in Brütal Legend remind me of Star Wars Galaxy.  Except Metal Gods emit a light that points all the way to heaven.  A Stairway to Heaven if you will. A few times I found the navigation to be a bit cumbersome since some missions were behind very tall mountains and was hard to detect where your waypoint was located.

Upgrade your stuff. Ozzie Osbourne, the prince of Darkness makes an appearance as the Motor Forge store keeper but looks a bit like Yoko Ono instead.  He better not sing “So This is Christmas” and split up any bands! Throughout the story, you gain Fire Tributes for every main and secondary mission you are victorious in. This Rockin’ form of currency is used for purchasing upgrades. You need to please the God of Metal along the way. In Motor Forge, you can purchase various upgrade from Fire wielding Battle-Axes to double gun cannons for your roadie fabricated Hot Rod called “The Deuce”. Customizing your ride with certain weapons will make your world roaming experience even bloodier.

Great Casting, Great Tracks. I mentioned Jack Black and Ozzy Osbourne are featured players in the game but the cast is entertaining with some legends. You’ll also run into heavy metal musicians including Rob Halford, Lemmy Kilmister and the sexy Lita Ford. You’ll hear 108 metal tracks that can be heard in full during the game and while riding The Deuce.

Brütal – Command and Conquer Tower Defense — Legend. Brütal Legend really does a good job of mixing in many aspects of gaming into one game without over doing it. The Metal battle field you’re trying to protect gives you another look of the game. Eddie, after turned into a flying demon, controls his Metal Minions for total control of the map using the command center. You must protect The Main Stage while trying to take out theirs. Loaded with fog horns and spotlight turrets you have to do everything you can to keep them away. In between the the stages are Merchandise booths. These allow you to build up your infantry with Headbangers (close combat), women bikers (long distance shooters), pin headed large fisted bouncers (strong melee) and so on. Your Metal Minions are as dumb as they come but their over-sized trapezoids and bobbing heads make you glad they’re working WITH you.  Seriously, I think their necks got so thick from head banging.

Metal your way in Multiplayer. Brütal Legend’s multiplayer mode is based off Real-Time strategy.  You choose from 3 factions to battle with in skirmish battles.  You can have up to eight people online with four on each side choosing from seven maps. The goal is simple, destroy your opponents’ base before he destroys yours. The multiplayer is challenging yet fun addition since I mostly saw Brutal Legend as a single player campaign.

Pros:
Jack Black
80’s Metal Rock theme
Really funny
Soundtracks
RTS in Rock band concert like feel
Voice acting

Cons:
Lack of jumping
Minor glitches

Final Thought: The “It has it all game” has arrived in Heavy Metal ass kickin glory, Brütal Legend.  Including; Free roam play, driver, Real-Time Strategy, Music and of course Comedy.  For once I can say here’s a different type of game that combines all the elements to make a great game.  Most subtle but necessary feature for me was Brütal Legends save option. Yes, I am applauding a game for introducing “Save and Exit” but more importantly removing the dreaded “Any unsaved progress will be lost” after just a “Save”.  Thank you for simplifying something many developers still get wrong.  For Metal fans, and those who enjoy a good solid all-in-one game, Rock On!

9/10

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The image above nearly caused me to think I missed the biggest point-n-click adventure game.  But after some research, I realized this fan made iteration of Han Solo Adventures was not made by LucasArts but is currently being developed for free play by Stacy Davidson.

Using the same template from Indiana Jones and The Fate of Atlantis, Han Solo Adventures will play identical to the Star Wars Episode IV-VI galaxy.  Meant to be played on Windows XP/Vista, Mac support may be in the works. Gameplay below shows off the game a bit, but the audio will not be included in the final version.

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It’s been nine years since we last heard from Guybrush Threepwood and the rest of the Monkey Island crew in their last swash-buckling adventure in 2000’s Escape From Monkey Island and boy have they changed.  Not only has the developer of the title changed, but some of the visuals have received an update as well.  With all of this updating, does the first episode of Tales of Monkey Island have the same feel as the previous Monkey Island games, or did that get an unnecessary update as well?

In Tales of Monkey Island: Episode One, you play as Guybrush Threepwood, Mighty Pirate™.  The game’s opening sequence introduces Elaine, Guybrush’s wife, and The Ghost Pirate LeChuck, who has kidnapped Elaine in order to make her his bride….again.  Guybrush comes sailing in to rescue his wife, only to be blown away from the ship and stranded on an unknown island with a cursed hand courteous of LeChuck.  Once you begin your adventure on the island, that is when you get the sense of this being a true Monkey Island game.  One of your first missions on the island is to prove yourself a mighty pirate, which acts as an homage to how The Secret of Monkey Island started.  The Tales of Monkey Island thankfully doesn’t require players to have played any of the previous Monkey Island games.  Long time fans will be able to pick out little references to the past games, but that doesn’t mean this title is only for the die-hard Monkey Island fans as there’s plenty in this title for new players who enjoy a good adventure game.

The controls for Tales Of Monkey Island are a mix of on-screen clicks to particular points of interest and moving Guybrush around using the WASD keys.  FPS shooter players will be familiar with this control scheme, but Guybrush’s movements feel clunky at times and it’s hard to navigate him through the 3D world.  Guybrush can also be moved by holding down a mouse button and pulling him towards the intended destination, but that feels a little strange at times as well.

The interface has also received a bit of an upgrade.  Gone are the actions like “Look At” and “Talk To” to which now you simply point at a particular point of interest, click, and Guybrush will interact with it.  If it’s an item, he’ll either comment on it or pick it up.  If it’s a character, he’ll start a dialogue with them.  Items in your inventory can be called up with the TAB key, but you can also move your mouse to the right edge of the screen to call it up as well.  In previous Monkey Island games, to combine items, you simply took one item, put it on another, and the items would be used together.  In Tales of Monkey Island, there are two slots in your inventory screen where you can place the items individually in order to combine them.

Graphically, The Tales of Monkey Island isn’t anything spectacular in comparison to current-gen games.  This is neither a good thing nor bad as the Monkey Island series has never been known to push the envelope graphically.  The main players in the game received a nice artistic upgrade, but some of the side characters can look awfully familiar at times, such as the pirate you commandeer a boat from and the news reporter you meet early on in the game.  Regardless of that, the visual style overall is reminiscent of a true Monkey Island game.

When I think of a Monkey Island game, the one thing that sticks out the most is the humor.  The humor in Tales of Monkey Island is spot-on to the past games.  As you progress through the story, the dialog between Guybrush and other characters is always entertaining and rarely bores you enough to want to skip through the dialog.  Most of what you’ll encounter in the dialog will be nonsense and won’t make a difference to the game’s story, but learning all of the little intricacies of the characters that populate the island are always entertaining.

FINAL THOUGHT: It’s safe to say that the Monkey Island series is in good hands with TellTale Games.  The sights, sounds, puzzles, and dialog are all reminiscent of a true Monkey Island game.  Adventure game fans will be pleased with the offering TellTale has made with the first episode of Tales of Monkey Island.

8.5/10

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Breaking News: The LucasArts classic PC titles will be heading to Steam on July 8th.  This is huge news since old school gamers can finally have a home to play all of their titles through Steam.  While many expected “Day of the Tentacle” would be the breaking news, this news is just as good since now we’ll be seeing 10 PC classics available via Direct Download!  This will also be the first round of releases so if your title isn’t on the list, it may be included in the second wave.

The complete list of games to be released on July 8 via Steam includes:
• Armed and Dangerous™
• Indiana Jones® and the Fate of Atlantis
• Indiana Jones® and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure
• LEGO® Indiana Jones: The Original Adventure
• LOOM™
• Star Wars Battlefront® II
• Star Wars Republic Commando®
• Star Wars Starfighter™
• The Dig®
• Thrillville®: Off the Rails™

“This effort is going to make it possible to introduce a whole new generation of gamers to
LucasArts’ classic games,” said Darrell Rodriguez, president of LucasArts. “It also gives
more people a chance to play our games by making them available long after they’ve
disappeared from store shelves. We hope our fans are as excited as we are about our
plans and we can’t wait to share what’s coming next. This is just the beginning.”
This series of launches continues LucasArts’ new mission to revitalize its deep portfolio
of beloved gaming franchises.

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If you’re a fan of LucasArts, then you’ll be interested to know that tomorrow they’ll be announcing one of their old franchises will be making a comeback. (don’t worry, we’ll report it here) Within the past month, we’ve been treated to Monkey Island with our mugs filled with grog. (what exactly is grog?)

On their official LucasArts twitter page the following message was left:

“Amazing news coming Monday! Super excited! You have no idea how tough it is not to start yelling about it! But it’s secret! Until Monday!”

Additionally they say, “awesome news for old school fans.”

We know the upcoming re-release of Monkey Island is approaching soon, but what title will we see?   Many great LucasArts titles will please just about everyone but I have my own list I’d like to see.

1. Day of The Tentacle
2. Indiana Jones
3. Grim Fandango
4. Loom
5. Full Throttle

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During E3, one of the biggest surprises to come out of the show was LucasArts’ announcement of bringing back the Monkey Island series from the dead.  Who better to team up with than TellTale Games, who has been working on adventure titles for the past four years.

The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition brings back the PC classic we all know and love, and brings it into the HD era with completely redone artwork, voice acting, and even a new graphical interface so the player can experience more of the game.  If all of this sounds like it’s up your alley, then you’ll be happy to know LucasArts is going to be live-streaming a one hour playthrough session today on Justin.tv at 3PM PST / 6PM EST.  They’ll be answering questions and following your orders live via the Justin.TV chatroom or through their Twitter.

If you just want to sit back and watch the action unfold, check back after the break where the video has been embedded for your convenience.

[UPDATE: The live session has come and gone, but LucasArts went ahead and recorded the session.  So the video after the break features an hour of gameplay footage]

Oh, HAI!  If you dropped in to check the live show and it hasn’t started, might I interest you in The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition Trailer?  It’s got pretty much all the info you need on the game, so why not check it out while you wait?

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The best generation of PC gaming was definitely the 90’s.  It’s where LucasArts ruled the PC platform and with good reason.  I don’t know a person who’s played Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle or Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis and didn’t enjoy the point-and-click adventure game.  LucasArts had everything going for them in the right direction. Sam and Max followed Maniac Mansion and Loom, so many thought the history behind LucasArtss’ success would continue into the 2000’s. But alas, slowly the progression of PC gaming was exiting and in came in console gaming.

The posters below are for the LucasArts enthusiasts. Reminisce with the great memories of playing Day of the Tentacle, and wondering just how will I get pass the “Beauty Contest” mission of the game? Like to try it, here’s the best emulator for playing classic LucasArts games

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