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.

Quick Review: Grizzly Bear, Veckatimest

I know I should just be doing record reviews in twitter. By the way did you know I have a twitter account? Painful shilling over...


The first time I listened to Grizzly Bears follow up to their in my mind seminal Yellow House, I thought it was underwhelming, boring, and in the worst meaning of the word, workmanlike. It felt very familiar, without any of the immediacy I felt when I put Yellow House in the first time. Of course, the funny thing is, after listening through it four, five, six more times, I think it might actually be a better album. Veckatimest's heights are absolutely as much of the revelation as Yellow House was for me.

The band is playing their tightest pop songs ever, but still drenched in the reverb, counter-rhythmic drumming, and, of course, harmonies that has defined the band for me ever since I first heard their single Deep Sea Diver many years ago. They are working like a working-band, pumping out great songs with great inventive production, fantastic song writing, and excellent musicianship in the best way any good moody indie band can: by not bowing to any pressures, just continuing down their creative path. At this moment, I cannot think of a better way for them to follow up a breakthrough like Yellow House.

Grizzly Bear, Veckatimest

Score: 4 yummy, if oddly named animal related pastry!