How to best explain Brutal Legend to your friends...

[ThunderPeel2001]

I've noticed that I'm having the same difficulty I had with Psychonauts, trying to get my friends to understand how cool and original Brutal Legend is. What's the best way to sum it up in a sentence or two?

The best I've come up with so far is: "You play a roadie who gets transported to Rock N' Roll Hell by his cursed belt-buckle. Jack Black, Lemmy and Dio all play characters, too!"

It's not even, strictly speaking, accurate... Eddie Riggs is actually sent back in TIME.

Anyone do any better? It seems that, like Psychonauts, it refuses to fit into a genre.

[Nachimir]

Key points: Cartoony, violence so OTT that it's funny by itself, voice acting by Jack Black, music by Motorhead etc.

The music is key. A not-so-gamey friend of mine liked the idea of a tiny plastic guitar enough, but was sold on GHIII by the Sex Pistols re-recording Anarchy in the UK.

[Thrik]

I think I'd wait until knowing exactly what type of gameplay it is before attempting to explain it to anyone. The gameplay would be leverage for those who aren't into metal/rock, the theme would be for those who are, and Schafer would be leverage for anyone who played his past games.

If I were forced to explain it to neither fans of metal nor Schafer though, it'd be something like, "It's a game where you play as a roadie for a metal band and have to kill demons that've taken over the world. It has all blokes from classic metal bands doing characters... Jack Black as well."

Except with plenty of dialect and slang thrown in there, clearly.

[DanJW]

I like my previous description, of "the most extreme mock-fantasy heavy-metal album covers, brought to life".

[elmuerte]

it's simple, it's simply the greatest and best song ... erm ... game in the world

Long time ago Tim and his brother Kyle here, they were hitchhikin' down a long and lonesome road.

All of a sudden, there shined a shiny demon in the middle of the road.

And he said: "Give me the best game in the world, or I'll eat your souls."

Well Tim and Kyle, looked at each other, and they each said "Okay."

[ThunderPeel2001]

I like my previous description, of "the most extreme mock-fantasy heavy-metal album covers, brought to life".

Yes, I've also used the sentence, "it's based in the world of 70s and 80s rock album covers".

There has to be a way to get the awesomeness of this game across to people, though. For some reason I downplay the Jack Black involvement. Not sure why.

[Thrik]

Well to be perfectly honest there isn't much awesomeness to get across yet. Granted, the Schafer involvement and the theme are very cool, but to someone not intimately familiar with either there's kind of fuck all there for them to bet excited about. Many cool concepts have come and gone across the years and ended up being absolutely shite games -- the fact Double Fine is doing this one means nothing to most people.

Probably best to just let Sierra's marketing do its magic, because getting mates excited now about a game that's a year away is pretty much a waste of time. Why bother? At the very most I'd bring it up a month or so before it comes out.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Thrik, I'm not on some "crusade" to educate my friends for the next year, I'm just interested to see how hard it is to sell (don't take that too literally) Brutal Legend to my friends, and I thought many minds might make light work of it.

When I'm talking to a gamer friend, who doesn't necessarily know Tim Schafer, it's just plain difficult to explain why you're excited about it quickly enough and clearly enough to actually maintain their interest.

I can't think of another game I'm looking forward to that has that problem, no matter how far off it is.

I know we'll know more about the gameplay in the future, but knowing it's an FPS isn't going to make it any easier to explain why it's worth getting excited about, and quite frankly, saying that other games with "good concepts have come about and they were shite" is a completely redundant statement -- should we not get excited about *anything* just because other things turned out to be bad?

I get what you're saying, but we know the major concepts, and knowing that Psychonauts is a platformer doesn't really do anything to help explain why you're excited by it, to another person.

So, to get back to the original question, there must be an easy way to sum up this game?

[Noyb]

The easiest way to explain it is to pay $10 (American on amazon) to give said friend Psychonauts. Not necessarily the cheapest, but it's damn effective.

[DanJW]

3rd Person Action Adventure Heavy Metal Fantasy Rockfest Satire.

It's a standard genre, I don't see the problem.

[Thrik]

Man, you quoted 'crusade' as if I said that or something. I wasn't trying to criticise you.

I'm just saying what we have right know is difficult to enthuse friends with in casual conversation as you pointed out with this thread, so it might be worth just waiting until there's more to talk about. I used the 'games that sound cool but are shit' concept as if from the perspective from my friends; they have no idea why Tim Schafer should command attention, so to them it's no different to the designer of, say, Splinter Cell. Just another game out there.

Incidentally, I personally have found I wouldn't know how to sum up some great games to friends so far in advance of them coming out. When BioShock was announced all we knew about it is that it was made by the System Shock 2 guys and that it had guys in underwater suits.

I knew back then (going back to 2004 here) it'd end up being great, and it did, but I sure as hell wouldn't have known how to get people as excited as I was about it back in 2004. I just knew it'd be good because of the designers and the vague theme. I see Brutal Legend in the same way.

But hey, my friends aren't your friends. Perhaps you can communicate this type of thing better with them. I just know the words 'Tim Schafer', 'metal', and 'Jack Black' aren't going to really stir any emotions in them whatsoever, so I wouldn't even try without some convenient marketing to point out.

[Nappi]

All I had to do to get my friend interested about the game was to mention things like a heavy metal world, protective mosh-pit, Lemmy as a shamanic bass player, and a couple of the bands/artist that would be contributing to the game.

Then again, he likes metal (not this kind though) and has somewhat similar sense of humor as I do. He isn't nearly as excited about the game as I am, but that's understandable as he doesn't know Tim Schafer and, like already said, only a few details have been revealed at this point.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Sorry, I wasn't quoting the crusade thing, but rather couldn't think of a better word so put it in quotes. Doesn't matter, I know what you're saying, I just refuse to be defeated! There must be a way!

I think we know enough for people to get excited, otherwise they would have waited longer before releasing a trailer and done an 8 page article on the game. The question is: How to distill all that information down to cool bite size chunks.

Makes you wonder how they pitched the idea in the first place!

I wonder whether Jack Black was a fan of Psychonauts before or after Double Fine contacted him.

[elmuerte]

I wonder whether Jack Black was a fan of Psychonauts before or after Double Fine contacted him.

In either way, he at least got the T-Shirt. Maybe it's was a bribe: "We need your input for a rock action adventure game, and in return you'll get a t-shirt".

[Roderick]

It's pretty obvious that the Whispering Rock photograph was made long after Brütal Legend was in the works. Maybe Black was a fan before being contacted, but no one knows.

[ThunderPeel2001]

I imagine, I guess, that somehow they contacted him and got taken seriously (maybe he was on the lookout for games at the time?). They sent their previous game over, he loved it, and agreed to hear about their latest project... which he then loved.

Of course, I would love to believe it was the other way around: Jack Black loves Psychonauts, calls Tim up and says "I need to be in your next game!"

[Ginger]

I would take Thrik's advice and not try to sell it to people until u actually have something to sell. I have to say I’m not a great fan of Schafer's humour, a lot of the time I don't like the tone nor the method of delivery, sometimes it tickles me into loling. With Psychonauts I heard a barrage of spiel about what an amazing game it was and how it was one of the best for ages and everyone needed to buy it (without many reason as to why,[i think because those who love it can’t see why others may not]) , I played it: couldn't stand the game play and really didn't like the tied old characters and stopped playing it very quickly. If it had been sold to me with fewer superlatives and more reason as to why I would like it, beyond it being a Schafer game (To be fair to Spaff he did a good job of this when persuading me to give it a go, but much damage had already been done). I probably would have given it more of a chance and probably would have liked it, but my expectations were raised and I looked at it with an overly critical eye.

Giving them a copy of Psychonauts and the pick of destiny (again thought it was quite funny but not my fav style of humour) is probably the best thing to do, if they get excited by the possible permutations, cool, u've sold it, if not u'll it will probably be counter productive if u push the concept too hard without a foundation. When it is closer to release and u know more about what u are hyping, u can tell them why they'll like it, but until them I sure they can go on without hearing why brutal legends is going to be awesome ( I wish I could)

This is the perspective of someone who is not that excited about it (will give it a play if the gameplay appeals) but has people enthusing it to him all the time. STOP IT!!!!

[Nachimir]

Surfer Girl explains:

* Brütal Legend is the video game equivalent of waking up in the morning next to Ryan Gosling and then some.

* Brütal Legend is the video game equivalent of Rocky knocking out dinosaurs with one punch and then some.

* Brütal Legend is the video game equivalent of William Faulkner sending you a text message and then some.

* Brütal Legend is the video game equivalent of birthing one of those Baby Geniuses and then some.

* Brütal Legend is the video game equivalent of punching Dane Cook and Jack Johnson in the face witht hand then some.

* Brütal Legend is making the umlaut hot again and then some.

* Brütal Legend is the best thing to happen to metal since RoboCop versus The Terminator and then some.

* Brütal Legend is the video game equivalent of Godzilla being a guest on Charlie Rose and then some.

* Brütal Legend is the video game equivalent of Aquaman having shark for feet and then some.

* Brütal Legend is the video game equivalent of Zombie Pavarotti covering Chris Crocker's Britney tantrum and then some.

* On Tuesdays and Thursdays, Brütal Legend has no questions, only answers and then some. On Mondays and Wednesdays, Brütal Legend has no answers, only questions and then some.

* Brütal Legend is the video game equivalent of The Wonder Twins starting a White Stripes cover band and then some.

* Brütal Legend is the video game equivalent of John Zorn serving Kenny G and then some.

* Brütal Legend is the video game equivalent of Air recording an album with Free Air.

* Brütal Legend is the video game equivalent of everything in SkyMall combined.

[TracerTong]

"You can melt peoples' faces off with guitar solos."

[twmac]

I usually go along the lines of:

"Did you play Psychonauts?"

Depending on their answer I either:

A) Berate them for not buying/playing it

Tell them that they should be looking forward to Brutal Legend

Although for some reason I felt the need to drunkenly tell someone it was looking like a combination of Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath and Arkadian Warriors... With Metal.

I won't be using the latter example ever again (I hope)