Metal in the gaming industry

Music games have been a success for quite a while now. Rockband, Guitar hero… I’m sure almost everyone has either hear from them, seen them or played them. Now we see Brütal Legend, an game that’s been released by Electronic Arts and which puts heavy metal in the spotlight as it has never been put before. It’s easy to get lost with so many “Rock” games and to wonder: “Which game should I really play as a metal lover?”. I hope to make that a little bit clearer for all of you who are wondering about this by explaining the kind of games that are around, the differences and explaining the platforms. Besides this there’s also a difference coming, because of these music games, in the way music will be released in the future. So this article might also be interesting for all the musicians among us! So keep reading!

Rock music certainly isn’t a new phenomenon in the gaming industry. Way before we even saw the previously mentioned games we could hear a lot of rock music in various gaming soundtracks. But there has been a major change, especially in the West. It used to be a big taboo for game creators to really highlight metal but now it seems that taboo has vanished completely. There have been quite a few music game releases over the past few years like Karaoke Revolution, Singstar, Rock Tour Tycoon etc., each of them with a few rock songs but none of them really special to really attract the rocker’s attention. But way before we saw the release of Rockband of Guitar Hero in the West, Japan had something else, something that would later on open the path to many other games: Guitar freaks and Drummania.

Unfortunately these games were mainly focused on Japanese music and they were mostly, even though they were also released on consoles, for the arcade. Fun for the j-rock lover, not so much for the Western rock lover. But thanks to these games we now have Rockband and Guitar Hero, which opened the way to a more open metal world. I’ll continue talking about both these games and about Rockband Network and the changes in the gaming and music industry because of this network later on.

But first let’s talk about Brütal Legend, the game in which it’s all about heavy metal!

Brütal Legend - The story, game play and the worlds:

Your character in Brütal Legend is the heavy metal roadie Eddy Riggs and with him your being send back to a mythical metal age where the only rules are the rules of rock. Your weapons? A guitar axe and a V8. Besides the typical hack’n’slash stuff you can also perform solo’s on your V8 to expand your army or to melt the faces from your enemies and much more. Your army consists of head bangers, roadie’s, torturers , zombie’s, demons etc. And don’t forget it’s all about the fans, they are the ones you have to win over and you have to do everything in your power to keep them. They, together with the rock gods, are the ones that will give you the power you need. Together with your hot rod Deuce, it actually spits fire, makes stunts, and blows up your speakers with your own track list, you march of to war to liberate humanity from the barbaric warlords to become a Brütal Legend.

The worlds? It’s where it becomes obvious it’s made by fans for fans. The worlds are inspired by Norwegian mythology and covers from metal records and in those world there are references being made to known and underground bands. But this doesn’t only happen in those worlds but also in the game characters you’ll meet: not only with Jack Black(Eddie Riggs) but you’ll also find Ozzy Osbourne, Lemmy Kilmister, Lita Ford, Robert Halford… Many sub genre’s in their most extreme form.

Brütal Legend can’t complain about not having a great soundtrack. Of course everyone will miss some favorite song, but it’s without a doubt one of the best game soundtracks. There are 108 songs from 75 bands like 3 Inches of Blood, Anthrax, Black Sabbath, Candlemass, Children of Bodom, Cradle of Filth, Dark Tranquility, Deathstars, Dragonforce, Emperor, Judas Priest, in Flames, Kiss, Marilyn Manson, Manowar, Megadeth, Mötley Crue, Rob Zombie, Saxon, Slayer, Static-X, Whitesnake and much much more! If you’re curious about the complete soundtrack, check it out the link on the lefts side. Some of these songs are available for listening from the beginning, other ones you will have to unlock with one of your solo’s at certain points in the game.

It’s already been confirmed that there will be downloadable content, the first batch will be out in the first week of November on Playstation Network and Xbox Live, what we can expect in the future is currently unknown but with a set list like this everything is possible!

I did of course try the game and Brütal Legend totally convinced me. It looks amazing, I enjoy the worlds, not only to complete the game but also to just ride around and look for those references. Besides the hack’n’slash, which is always good, it’s also very cool to do those solo’s (even if they are a bit simple most of the times). And of course just riding around in your hot rod while listening to music kicks ass. The only minor point I can find is the game isn’t that big so your done pretty quickly. But hey, if your done with the single player mode, there’s always the multiplayer mode and let’s hope for more downloadable content soon. In any case, Brütal Legend is without a doubt a must have game for the rock’n’roll lover!

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