Stranger in a Strange Land
Brutal Legend is the story of Eddie Riggs, the greatest roadie who ever lived. Roadies are the hard-working guys behind the scenes who do all the hard work while the band gets all the glory. Building stages, tuning guitars, doing what needs to be done, it's these guys who keep the show on the road. The roadie isn't a glory hound, either -- after a mic check or two, the lowly roadie scurries off-stage and into the shadows once more, behind the scenes where he belongs. Eddie is a heavy metal roadie for an absolutely awful band, clearly a dig at the "false metal" bands that have changed the modern perception of heavy metal music by catering to the "tween demographic." As you'd expect, things go horribly wrong for the chain-smoking Riggs during the show, and Eddie is impaled by part of the set he built. As blood seeps down into his gleaming chrome belt buckle, he's magically transported into a heavy metal album cover-inspired fantasy land where demons have enslaved humanity. It turns out that this world needs a hero, the kind of hero who can build stuff, fix things, play guitar, and swing a mean axe. What they need... is a roadie.
Who's Who
Riggs is voiced by Jack Black, who pretty much plays himself. Brutal Legend is a vehicle for the Tenacious D frontman and comic actor to make his splash in the interactive medium, and the transition appears to have been a natural one. Black comfortably riffs on uber-fantasy material that isn't too far removed from what he worked with in "Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny," the musical comedy adventure he and bandmate Kyle Gass released in '06. They're both stories that involve the supernatural power of rock 'n' roll, icons of deviltry, and cameo appearances by Black Sabbath frontmen.
In fact, appearances by metal legends and metal enthusiasts alike abound in Brutal Legend. You'll find the Prince of Darkness himself, Ozzy Osbourne, providing the voice talent and likeness (complete with round, wire-rim glasses) for the Guardian of Metal, keeper of timeless secrets (ie in-game upgrades). Rob Halford of Judas Priest is lending his distinctive voice to the role of tongue-in-cheek glam metal icon General Lionwhyte, a villain with hair so prodigious that he can actually form a pair of blonde wings from it, which carry him across the battlefield. Lemmy Kilmister and Lita Ford also play roles, voicing characters who are at least partially (if not entirely) inspired by themselves. Black's Tenacious partner Kyle Gass plays the role of a mortar operator that kicks off a mini-game where you have to paint targets on the field for his oversized cannon. Also joining in on the fun are the slacker neighbors from "The Sarah Silverman Show," Brian Posehn and Steve Agee. Posehn, a dyed-in-the-wool heavy metal enthusiast, plays a big game hunter who tasks you with decimating the local fauna, while Agee plays a demon with a detachable head that he swings with a chain. You can't make this stuff up.
Parental Advisory
One of the more interesting features I noted is the option to keep Brutal Legend foul-mouthed and hear every nasty syllable of dialogue or to self-impose a censor to bleep out the language that might rile youngsters or those with more delicate sensibilities. Schafer feels that these options can be equally entertaining, mentioning that when Osbourne came in to record his voiceovers, he expressed a preference for the American version of "The Osbournes," because the censored version is funnier than the raw profanity aired in the UK show. Sometimes it's funnier to hear the bleeps, so you have that option. There's a similar option, presented during a riveting decapitation sequence, where you can turn off the blood and gore. It seems a shame to turn off the bloody mess in a game about a heavy metal roadie who swings a battle-axe, but to each their own.
