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Brutal Legend's four-on-four multiplayer (vaguely) detailed
Lo, what is this? Xbox.com's info page for Brütal Legend actually contains some noteworthy ... info on the game? It's true, and said info has to do with the game's yet-to-be-revealed multiplayer component -- y'know, the one that provided the basis for the single-player game's strategy elements?According to the site, the game will include a four-on-four XBL skirmish mode which "marries action combat with a strategic unit-control mechanic," and sees each player battling "as the leader of one of the factions in the game." Given that the single-player game will feature showdowns between whole armies comprised of numerous specialized units, we can see this "skirmish" becoming a full-on war -- a "battle of the bands," if you will, only with lives on the line in lieu of recording contracts. (Isn't it always better that way, really?)[Via Evil Avatar]
Tim Schafer walks us through Brutal Legend's beginning
Brütal Legend's Rocktober release is drawing closer, and the game's creator, Tim Schafer, has tossed us a bone in a pair of developer walkthroughs for the beginning sections of the game over at IGN. Be warned: The videos show off a great deal of content, so if you're trying to avoid spoilers, steer clear. For the rest of you, we suggest you don your spiked bracelet and sleeveless leather vest and peer past the break for some glorious metal action.Source - Brütal Legend developer walkthrough (part one)Source - Brütal Legend developer walkthrough (part two)
Tim Schafer's Brutal Legend box art accolade
Whilst staring longingly at Tuesday's finally released cover art for Brütal Legend, something struck us as a little ... out of the ordinary. There they were, right above the game's logo: the words "A Tim Schafer Game." (With a seriously metal "S" in Schafer, we must say.) You see, unlike the wonderful world of film, it's a rarity that video games' creators get credit in promotional materials, let alone on their games' covers. Sure, there are exceptions, like Sid Meier, Hideo Kojima, Tom Clancy and John Madden. Oh, that's right. Those last two don't even make "their" games; they just get all the credit. For shame!But Tim Schafer? He makes the game (in more ways than one). Although his lone "solo" work to date -- Psychonauts -- was a critical success, it unfortunately didn't set cash registers ablaze, literally or figuratively. So, why the box-front accolade then? Two likely answers. The first is the fact that EA, in its early years, was fairly unique among computer game publishers in that it prominently displayed the names of its designers on their games' boxes -- so there's precedent. The other, perhaps stronger possibility: EA knows it's got something good, and is banking on Schafer and his Double Fine crew to keep on making EA-published games with his name on them, hopefully for many years to come.
Guinness World Record wailed on and then smashed for Brutal Legend
440 European fans of the upcoming heavy metal-inspired game Brütal Legend got together in Leicestershire, UK this past weekend to, well, fake-play guitar all at the same time. During the metal heavy 2009 Download Festival, the game's publisher EA organized attendees clad in Brütal Legend shirts around its "EA hub" and began the faux rocking while an "official adjudicator from the Guinness Book of World Records" oversaw the whole schebang. Though we're wary of fans of games that aren't even released yet, it's hard for us to deny our love for Tim Schafer's latest project. We'll let you slide this time, strange publicity grab, but next time you're gettin' a ticket, ya hear?
Tim Schafer comments on Brutal Legend's disappearing Dio
So Dio's out of Brütal Legend and Tim Curry's in, but it has nothing to do with any ongoing feud between Dio and Ozzy 'Prince of Darkness' Osbourne, as speculated. Tim Schafer has issued a statement clarifying the reasons for the decision, stating that "Ronnie James Dio is an amazing singer and truly one of the great figures of Metal, but as the character of Doviculus evolved, we realized that Tim Curry was a better fit for the part."That's all it is. He's a "better fit." Schafer claims that it was Curry's role as The Lord of Darkness in the 1985 movie Legend which landed him the part of Doviculus, but we suspect it may be his most famous role, as Rocky Horror's Frankenfurter, which is the real reason behind the casting. Just you wait, Doviculus will be prancing around in stockings and a corset before the game is through. Yeah, we see you shiver with antici ... you know the rest.
Interview: Tim Schafer and the art of selling out
My name is Tim ... S-C-H-A-F-E-R. [points to my notepad] That's correct. Do people get that wrong a lot? They never get it right. Does it annoy you? No, I just like to fight for my particular spelling. For no reason it's completely arbitrary but for some reason it's enjoyable to fight for the specific spelling that I randomly have. You're trying to keep your Google ranking up. Exactly. You don't want people messing with it. And people who spell their names A-E-F-F-E-R. Hate those guys. They're jerks.
Hands-on: Brutal Legend (the umlaut breaks our RSS feed, sorry)
This is going to be the easiest preview ever. Though Tim Schafer calls Brütal Legend the most personal game he's ever done, it's possibly the most widely, inescapably appealing project he's been involved with. I don't need to champion the amazing band of kids at Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp or Manny and the delightful denizens of the underworld this time. We're talking about a hilarious, open-ended heavy metal epic starring Jack Black. Do you really need me to tell you it's awesome?Because, you know, it is.%Gallery-41208%
Tim Schafer electrocutes Jack Black on video
We hope EA is paying Jack Black a pretty hearty check, as he's been a pretty vocal advocate of Tim Schafer's upcoming Brutal Legend. It probably helps that he's the main character, but we're still surprised by the actor's continued presence in the game's promotion. The latest episode of "Brutal Thoughts" has Schafer doling out the pain to Black by transforming him into a human videogame character.See also:Jack Black pumped for 'that Brutal Legend movie'
Ozzy Osbourne's voice is in Brutal Legend
With Jack Black, Lita Ford and Rob Halford, Tim Schafer's sure-to-be-opus Brutal Legend already has a star-studded cast of voice actors. Add one more to the constellation: Ozzy Osbourne will be portraying an unnamed character in the game, as revealed at today's EA E3 press conference.He looks ... well, he looks like Ozzy Osbourne. Dare we hope that the prince of darkness is appearing as himself?
Jack Black pumped for 'that Brutal Legend movie'
In anticipation of his upcoming movie game, Brütal Legend, Jack Black is getting pumped. He's curling axes and mic stands, making silly faces and, apparently, taking toxic levels of anabolic steroids. Things are ready and on course for the game's October release then, no?Yes. Thankfully confirmed by a calm and collected Tim Schafer halfway through the video, the game's "almost done" and ready for the stage this fall. Maybe Schafer could've told Jack before he took all those steroids? Meh, we'll consider it payback for School of Rock. We kid! We kid!
Joystiq impressions redux: Brutal Legend
We imagine that we'll have several more looks at Brütal Legend before it drops in Rocktober, and that's just fine with us. We took a look at the opening scenes of the game back in April, along with other key moments like the creation of The Deuce (protagonist Eddie's hot-rod) the start of a headbangin' revolution. This time around we spent an hour with the legendary Tim Schafer as he took us into the full-fledged stage battle mode.If there's one thing we took away from it, it's that people will be going nutshit for this game. Find out what that means after the break.%Gallery-63381%
Brutal Legend rocks up on Oct. 13
Though that one Nazi at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark would have you believe otherwise, having your face melted off by a supernatural display of awesome power is probably one of the best things that could ever happen to you. Since the overwrought, open-world rock epic Brütal Legend promises to scorch our grinning mugs in similar fashion, we're pleased to note that it's scheduled to arrive on October Rocktober 13th in the US (and the 16th in Europe). "Wooo! Having an official release date is awesome!" shouted Tim Schafer, lead singe-er at Double Fine Productions. "And how cool is it that EA threw down the dough to have the name of an entire month changed to Rocktober?" Pretty cool, Tim -- but not as cool as the reception we plan on giving those stupid intervening months whenever they get in our pre-melted faces.%Gallery-41208%
We deserve these Grim Fandango action figures
Dear Santa,Yeah, we know it's early in the year, but we thought we'd beat the rush. Listen, we get that we still haven't gotten off the Naughty List after the BioShock 2 Game Informer thing. WE GET IT. We posted a bunch of craziness about Santa's Most Anticipated Game of 2009 without laying eyes on so much as a magazine scan? Shoddy, at best.But haven't we suffered enough? Look, just this morning we single-bloggedly (or at least that's what we're telling ourselves) made Microsoft extend its three-year warranty to 360s with E74 errors! Haven't we done enough to deserve these gorgeous Grim Fandango figures of Glottis and Manny. custom-made by Iain Reekie, in our stockings? Wait, wait, don't answer yet. You've got a few months to think about it.Love,Joystiq[Via A Bunch of Broken Ideas]
Tim Schafer thinks 'fans worry too much about sales'
Speaking to MTV Multiplayer, Tim Schafer recently addressed humanity's shocking failure to purchase a satisfactory number of Psychonauts game discs. "Fans worry too much about sales, to tell you the truth," said the procrastinating awards show host, possibly telling the truth. "As long as you make a cool game, publishers want to talk to you... [They say,] 'We liked 'Psychonauts. and we think we could have sold it better." Schafer assuaged fears of Brütal Legend becoming the next commercial Psychonauts, pointing out that the open-world shred-em-up "naturally has more commercial hooks, like hot babes and Jack Black." As reassuring as that is, fans may still worry, if only because we yearn to see Tim Schafer showered in unimaginable riches, enough for him to buy all the tuxedos he wants or construct a rocket-propelled candy castle which he'll use to fly across the globe searching searching for that special person that was missing in his life and then he'll land in our backyard and before we can yell at him for incinerating the dog during the landing procedure he'll walk up to us and put his finger to our lips and say shh don't worry where we're going you won't need animal companionship or anything because where we're going is a place where there are no animals because it's in space and that is where my space station is and we will learn to design really awesome games together but for now you have to stop writing this sentence because it's quite long you know.
Guitar controllers axed from Brutal Legend
Tim Schafer, speaking to a group of (likely excited) game journalists, broke the hard truth last week during GDC 2009: "I was trying to figure out how you would throw down the controller and pick up the guitar," he said. MTV Multiplayer is reporting that Mr. Schafer then told the group there are "no plans" for guitar controller compatibility in the upcoming Double Fine-developed, EA-published game. We've got one question for you, Mr. Schafer: WHAT?! But rather than mull over the fact that we won't be literally melting enemies' faces In Brütal Legend with our plastic guitars -- a travesty, no doubt about it -- we'll instead spend our time once again perusing the gallery of screens below, looking forward to its eventual release.%Gallery-41208%
Joystiq impressions: Brutal Legend
click to make brutally large! While others were stuck in boring panels or roped into demos of ridiculous new peripherals, we spent an afternoon during last week's Game Developers Conference at Double Fine, the idea factory of Tim Schafer, designer of such bona fide classics as Full Throttle, Grim Fandango and Psychonauts. We were there to see his latest, hotly anticipated creation in action for the first time -- a little game you may have heard of called Brütal Legend.We went in with a rough idea of what to expect: an action game set in a world inspired by heavy metal, with, we hoped, loads of trademark Schafer humor. We came out having seen a game that honestly exceeded our expectations. Brütal Legend is what you'd expect from Double Fine and more. It's not just a one-man crusade; it's a war set to a thunderous soundtrack and filled with surprises. %Gallery-49211%
Rumorang: Brutal Legend coming to Wii, not being developed by Double Fine
Those magic Gelflings known as "sources" have whispered into the ear of The Cut Scene that Brütal Legend is coming to the Wii -- but it won't be developed by Tim Schafer's Double Fine studio. Hey, funny thing, that's what we wildly (not really) speculated yesterday, but we didn't have Gelfings to back us up ... so sad.The Cut Scene goes on to explain why Brütal Legend on Wii makes strategic sense for EA. Short version: EA could use the cash and having its newest franchise on the top-selling console is probably a good idea.%Gallery-41208%
Schafer hesitates regarding Brutal Legend Wii rumor
Brütal Legend may officially be for Xbox 360 and PS3, but a recent conversation with 1UP may make hopeful metal action heroes rockin' a Wii take pause. The site confronted Double Fine honcho Tim Schafer about a pulled article by GoNintendo that the title was coming to Wii. Schafer's reaction was certainly interesting, as he asked his handler how to respond to the question, and simply stated, "We are making an Xbox 360 and PS3 version of Brütal Legend."Indulging pure speculation, it's very possible that Schafer is telling the truth and the in-house version of Brütal Legend is not being made for Wii. We've seen it countless times at this point that many studios develop for Xbox 360 and PS3, leaving the Wii work to an outside entity. That doesn't mean Brütal Legend for Wii is confirmed, but hesitation (and checking with the handler) is typically a sign that there's something more to the story.%Gallery-41208%
Overheard@GDC09: Tim makes a good point
"No one's ever made a bong in the shape of a game designer." -Tim Schafer We could give you some more context here, but we're pretty sure it speaks for itself.
GDC09: We write some jokes for Tim Schafer
Hosting the annual Game Developer Choice Awards is no joke -- but one does require plenty of amusing witticisms to make it off the stage alive. Double Fine's Tim Schafer has foolishly agreed to host the show again this year, prompting a mad quest to find the lolz necessary to combat the lulls. If you want to pretend to help him out, you can play the amazing adventure game, Host Master and the Conquest of Humor. Us? We're going to rescue the man from catastrophic embarrassment by offering the following jokes, free of charge: "Grand Theft Auto IV's a big contender tonight. Is anybody surprised? I know I'm not the only one who had a great time cruising around in stolen vehicles, running over prostitutes, doing stylish, drive-by shootings -- and then thought, 'Man, somebody should make a game out of this!'"
