Thrik

(Press the left analogue stick down and you'll sprint, which enables power slides and brutal running axe attacks.)

I'm only on like chapter 10, but I'd agree with this so far. With most games of this type I tend to get a bit bored of the environment and whatnot after a while no matter how good the mechanics are, and even the original Uncharted kind of failed in this respect due to the entire game pretty much being the 'Borneo' chapter of Uncharted 2 — hence why it took me 1.5 years to finish it. But this fucker? Man. It seems to be constantly delivering different themes entirely, all the while owning other games that've attempted similar environments. The lack of asset recycling is remarkable, and the sheer detail lavished upon areas you're through in like 10 seconds is mental. The set pieces are pretty incredible too. I think what makes them so cool is how seamlessly integrated with the gameplay they are, with the lines between cutscene, on-rails, and regular gameplay very blurry. The city environment has delivered some of the most epic views, encounters, and chases I've ever seen in gaming. Interestingly though, despite all this variation and shit I still feel like I need to play it the same way I played the original: in short bursts. If I play more than like two or three chapters at a time I start to get a bit disinterested, whereas if I make a habit of putting it down and coming back later or another day I seem to just enjoy it a lot more. Yeah, good game.

Seems pretty good considering what it's up against. Apart from Need for Speed they're all new, hot releases.

You should be able to move around any corner using the 'transition' move taught to you during the first stealth sequence, however I had tremendous difficulty getting it right the first time and I can see many people simply never learning it properly and playing on anyway. You basically need to move your camera so you can see the surface you want to move round onto, then you hold circle while pointing the movement stick towards that surface. I've not had any difficulty with it so far and I've been doing this on all sorts of cover types.

Shit man, I'm well into this now. I've just spent hours doing secondary quests and finding stuff. My jaw kind of dropped when I first saw the wall of amps doing its stuff — awesomeness! I have to confess I was getting a bit worried for a while, but it's like Fable 2 for me in that once the game gets its hooks into you it's really addictive and a massive joy to play. Similarly to Fable 2, it's mostly because of the fantastic world, characters, story, etc rather than the gameplay itself (although both games have pretty good gameplay, just not outstanding). Also, is it me or is this game fucking hard? I'm barely managing a lot of the earlier stuff on normal, and am massively tempted to drop to 'Gentle' — I can see it being more fun. However my 9-year-old sister is pretty much waltzing through, not dying once during stuff like the spider boss whereas I lost like 50,000 lives. :~

I've been crazily impressed so far, but I'm only just starting the third chapter (Quite a lot of gameplay just to get there!). I hate to touch on this point so much, but fuck me this game looks good. Just as much because of the camera work as the actual fidelity, but jesus — easily the most visually stunning game of the generation I think.

I've been loving it so far. I'm not as far as most of you I'd imagine having only just met Lemmy, but every aspect of the experience has been thoroughly enjoyable up to this point. This is basically exactly why we like Schafer: brilliant characters, amazing worlds, and writing that hooks you. I mean I've just been walking around in awe of the world, which is something I've not really done before even with games that have environments on a similar scale — clearly down to the incredible art direction and use of the engine to manipulate the lighting and whatnot in the most epic ways ever. Like the big fuck-off volcanoes, which aren't even the most amazing of landmarks in the game. God man, when I first came over a hill and saw that illuminating the sky with a deep orange glow and its gigantic plume of smoke going into the sky which happened to be full of electrified meteors and insane clouds, and then noticed the beam of light that acts as your waypoint is actually load of godly stage lights...

I did once when drunk.

At this point it'd have to be GameStation, which gets you the Tenacious D guitar that apparently has its own special effects and sounds and shit: http://gamestation.co.uk/search.aspx?s=brutal+legend&platform=*&ctl00%24SearchGo.x=0&ctl00%24SearchGo.y=0 GAME were offering the demo access and Tenacious D guitar, but it looks like both are no longer advertised on their pre-order page so I'm not sure whether or not you still get the guitar.

Yeah man, it is kind of surreal. Especially as I've been covering it so closely, so the fact it's almost fuckin' out has kind of just blindsided me... somehow. First mainstream review is out BTW: http://uk.xbox360.ign.com/articles/103/1033952p1.html "Oh, hell yeah." — IGN.com

Yeah, the quality ratio is pretty nice. There's so much SHIT on the 360 I hardly ever bother sifting through it. But then I don't buy many of these digitally distributed games anyway so my opinion is crap.

Man, wish I didn't have to give this away! http://www.brutallegend.net/news/win-an-eddie-riggs-figure-from-brutal/

Hah, 'Epic Mickey'. I love it! You can only imagine the meeting full of suits where that came up.

Yeah I'd agree that the sheer amount of shooting in Uncharted does get a bit annoying sometimes, which is why I had to play it in short sessions over quite a long time. The fact that it can be flawed in that respect yet still be so loved by a lot of people is a good indication of how awesome the other components are, though (story, characters, environment, atmosphere, etc). The fact they may very well nail that issue and have an almost perfect experience is what excites me so much about Uncharted 2.

Jimmy Fallon?

The original is one of my top few favourites of this generation, so yeah I'm massively excited about this. I absolutely love the atmosphere, reminds me a lot of Broken Sword crossed with Indiana Jones. I've been on a bit of a media blackout as I want to experience the story unspoilt, however the 'Fortune Favors' trailer has gotten me so in the mood for it it's going to really piss me off that Brutal Legend comes out on the same day.

Heh, that clip is weird. Tim handles himself really well and manages to be funny a good few times, whereas the host's humour was pretty poor and entirely predictable. Tim needs to be hosting these things, man.

To me it looked like they took the Metal Gear Solid approach to the cutscenes, in that it was rendered in real time using the game engine but they had higher-poly models for the close-ups and obviously spent a lot more time fine-tuning the effects. I didn't really see any evidence at all of them being pre-rendered, although I do remember them being anti-aliased. I don't remember if the main game was, though?

Yeah, he's done a good job — yet I've seen quite a few bastards during the past few days being all "Huh I won't touch this with Jack Douche in it, I hope it fails". I think marketing Jack Black is kind of a double-edged sword for EA, because on the one hand he is an extremely good voice actor who can completely change his tone easily, but he's played a bit of a metal-themed love-or-hate kind of character in a couple of films and people are synonymising Eddie with those characters. I wonder if the same people would refuse to watch Kung Fu Panda because of Jack's involvement.

Guh, that European thing is shit. Can anyone actually confirm it, just for clarity?

Yes.

You do it through the 'Redeem Code' panel when you hit the Xbox button on the game pad. It should be hitting the regular marketplace shit today as the Xbox LIVE Gold demo release is today.

Haha, I just saw the Raz dance. That's great how he does the same sound too. I tell you though, best be some stump joke in this open world somewhere. ;

GameStop have a note on the order page that says they won't allow you to cancel once the codes have been distributed, however I guess being in the UK if you really refused to pay up it's unlikely you'd get any legal recourse. You know GAME were doing codes for the UK though, right? Also the official Brutal Legend Twitter feed gave like 150 out last night. Looks like both are unavailable now sadly.

It didn't feel restrictive for me in the demo, but yeah it's hard to say without seeing more of the world. The demo is basically a drawn-out tutorial, so it completely guides you down a linear route and teaches you moves as you go. With that said, the demo doesn't teach you everything — only the basics of attacking, focusing (totally like Zelda), and a few special moves. I also noticed that moves don't seem to be available until they're taught to you, so it may be Y or something ends up being used for jumping, or at least climbing. We know Eddie will be able to fly, so it does seem weird he can't jump. But then I love Zelda and Fable 2, and the lack of a jump in those doesn't bother me in the slightest. Incidentally, I'd say Zelda and Fable 2 are definitely games that Brutal Legend feels striking similar to gameplay-wise. Obviously this doesn't include the more advanced group and strategic stuff that comes later, but the general combat and split between brute force (axe) and magic (guitar) is very similar.