Playing and reviewing Brütal Legend was a bit of a strange experience for me, and I believe it has a lot to do with my level of investment in the game.

To be clear, I am a huge fan of Tim Schafer and Double Fine Productions, and I’ve been looking forward to Brütal Legend, and any news I could scrape together, since its official announcement in 2007, and even since playing the studio’s previous effort, Psychonauts, years before – I was desperate to see what the team would come up with next.

The closer the release date for Brütal Legend became, however, the more worried I became, and the more questions I had; will the gameplay hold up throughout the entire game? Will Tim Schafer’s trademark humour and fleshed out characters be in there? What about the usual highly creative environments and twisting stories? And what’s with these real-time strategy elements I keep hearing about? How do they work and are they implemented well enough with the core combat-based gameplay?

Continue reading El33tonline’s review of Brütal Legend.