Brütal Legend

Bring Your Contraughler To The Slaughter. Worth: $9
based on 360 demo

The Hell's Bells on my Crazy Train just called Doctor Love.

I only fired up this demo because the GamerGal made me. Within ten seconds we were both laughing our asses off, and not because the game was bad, but because the writing is fantastically funny. It helps that we both know a lot of musicians and went to High School back when Heavy Metal was in its heyday.

The voice actors spin the great writing into top-notch performances. The dialogue is delivered with just the right mix of down-to-earth, yeah-this-is-happening realism and over-the-top head-banger awesomeness. Jack Black is terrific, naturally, and perfectly cast as Eddie the ultimate roadie.

The game itself is pretty simple, essentially playing out as a button-masher where you pound A and X to fight and press Y to grab stuff. The graphics are at least four years out of date, but at this point graphics weren’t too bad four years ago. The music, as one would hope, is very promising -- as long as you’re into Metal. The story feels very linear and replay will be extremely limited.

This game doesn’t get a high score, but it’s a lot higher than the Zero I expected to give it.