Brutal Legend Review or The Collective Conventional Wisdom of the Gaming Industry Disappoints Me

Guess what, this isn't really a review, so as they say on Pandorra: pis off.

Brutal Legend and the Temple of the Gaming Culture’s Conventional Wisdom

Brutal Legend is not a good game. I don’t know what the problems are. I’m sure parts of it work, but just parts a game do not make. Maybe I’m a snob, or my lack of love of heavy metal don’t allow me to care as much about the “subject matter,” but I just didn’t care.

And that fucking sucks.

I was talking to a buddy about Brutal Legend and how he found it pleasant, but forgettable. He was already trying to sell it. Which bummed me out. He asked me what I thought about it and I said what has been said: that I found it extremely underwhelming, overly ambitious, but inherently shallow. I asked him if he had played any other Tim Schaefer games. He said no.

This is not a comment on how my buddy is lacking in gaming literacy for not playing Psychonauts or Grim Fandango. This is partially because I don’t think it matters in enjoying Brutal Legend, and because gaming literacy is about as dumb of an idea as I can think, but that’s for a latter day. It’s a comment on how he expected the game to be good because it is from Tim Schaefer. It’s a strange off shot (or maybe the main goal) of the marketing behind Brutal Legend: that this is a Celebrity Game Designer and he doesn’t dissapoint. Too bad the game was almost all premise, no meat on the bones.

The closest game that I can compare this experience of mine with Brutal Legend is Spore, which I played for literally 2 hours.




Man I’m a fucking bummer.

A Stupid Problem in Abundance

"No delay on PC for Modern Warfare 2. You'll also have Prestige Mode in PC as well as lots of Steam support. Hopefully min specs will be soon (via @fourzerotwo)"
-Twitter

Never before has my amount of plenty been a cause of concern for me. Most folks don't have a good gaming pc and a xbox 360 and a ps3. I shouldn't be complaining, I should be enjoying my upper-middle-class place in America. Yet, when it comes to this game the kids are calling "MW2", or as I like to call it just to upset people IW4, I am confused. I really have a problem with buying multiple copies of a game even if its for multiple platforms, so what platform do i get it on?

The Aim-bots are a plenty on the PC side, but the fidelity of gameplay and graphics are far superior. I find the online fairer and more stable on consoles, but shouldn't I play my super intense shooters on pc?

Tell me...

What should I do?

Maybe I'll jusy play Uncharted 2 and Left 4 Dead 2 instead...

I don't want to make a big deal out of this...

As I sip this effeminate energy drink, I realize how awesome my joke in class was. Thats right motherfuckers, nothing is funnier than comparing the cap and trade system to seminar discussion rules.

I know that I should make some statement about Obama winning the Nobel Prize. Honestly, I think the main thing I am getting out of it is just seeing conservatives' heads explode, but besides that, I'm currently indifferent.

I did notice that Twitter kind of exploded during the announcement. It actually was the first bit of news I ever heard about through Twitter. This is supposed to confound me. It didn't.

The best tweet, at least from what I saw was from the ever awesome Eugene Mirman:

Congratulations Mr. Obama! You won fair and square, even though I’ve been texting Hamas & Isreal requesting peace for weeks.

Also, Jesse Thorn had some pretty good ones too:

Without the new diplomatic tone set by Pres. Obama, my wife and I would never have reached our historic new-apartment closet-sharing accord.


But that's just me.