Brütally Honest

Brütal Legend kicks ass. I love the story, the acting, the graphics, the cameos, the controls, the varied gameplay, the exploration... It feels like the natural evolution of Tim Schafer's work; from cutting-edge point-and-click adventure games; to Grim Fandango, which incorporated a more action-oriented control scheme into the adventure genre; to Psychonauts, which masterfully meshed the adventure and action genres together like no other before it; to Brütal Legend, which further expands upon adventure/action hybrid ideas with an open strategy element akin to games like Sacrifice and Overlord.

The major gripes I've heard so far have had to do with pop-in and inconsistent frame rates, navigation ('I need a mini-map', 'the waypoints may lead me into an obstacle'), and genre confusion ('you got your half-assed RTS effort in my adventure game')... But any pop-in or stuttering I've run into so far has been negligible and in no way makes anything unplayable, navigation is pretty straightforward (if you get lost, the map screen is very helpful; but like Psychonauts, exploration is a huge part of the fun to be had here), and the RTS elements are an intriguing addition to what is still primarily an action game. It seems to me like a lot of people were caught off-guard (myself included) by the heavy RTS infusion to the single-player game, as previews would have us believe that such aspects were more of a multiplayer thing... The resulting backlash seems to be one of confused criticism.

I do have some legitimate complaints though. Scene transitions can be abrupt, and trivial yet funny voice clips can get cut-off, never to be heard again. Certain aspects of the game (minor plot points, new skills, new types of enemies, stuff like that) are not fully explained, though their uses and meanings aren't exactly esoteric, so it's not the end of the world. Finally, things seem a bit easy... For example, I lost all of my men to an unexpected and unexplained environmental effect during a battle and was killed shortly thereafter, but not before reaching a checkpoint. When I respawned, I was at the checkpoint with a full complement of men; men who most certainly did not survive to reach that checkpoint with me... Regardless, Brütal Legend seems like a game worth spending some quality time with in order to savour its unique nuances and creative ideas; the rewards far outweigh any issues you may run into along the way.

So, Need For Speed ProStreet on PSP, eh? Yeah, good times. Great graphics, genuinely fun sim gameplay, lots to do, plenty of replay value... And asshole AI that has no qualms about sending you into a spin, as well as a broken garage system that doesn't let you sell old cars or get money back for downgrading... Unless I'm missing something there? Still one of the best racers on the platform, no question about it. I wonder why it seems to have been so overlooked by the press...

Finally, the e-mail server at work went down over night, and now I'm fixing it and developing a new storage strategy to better utilise our limited storage resources... Wheee!