I’ve been playing “Brütal Legend” and it’s more or less exactly what I expected, it’s an open world(ish) button masher, with a few different game types thrown in to mix up the game play. The opening sequence (and not coincidentally I’m sure), had some funny moments, and clever writing that I haven’t seen since. The music as you’re cruising around in the deuce is great, but.. I don’t need a game to listen to awesome music.. I could just throw on a CD. The RTS type game play elements are hectic and kind of fun, but if I have to listen to the conversation between Eddy and the head bangers about who they are going to ambush again I may cry. I don’t know if I have the gusto to stick with this one to the end, but I’ll keep plugging away at it… So far however, I’m sticking with my initial impressions, you may have fun with this game for a weekend or so, but don’t get your hopes up after reading some of the very high review scores.

Just a bit of an addendum, it looks like Tycho over at penny arcade has a similar feeling to mine about Brutal Legend… http://www.penny-arcade.com/2009/10/16/tycho-brahe-ornithologist/ Also… it seems like kotaku has an article about how to play the game straight from the horses mouth…http://kotaku.com/5382233/tim-schafer-explains-how-to-play-brutal-legend. If you have to explain how to play your game to the audience, you’re breaking the mold, GREAT! KUDOS! however… if you don’t make it very clear contextually while playing the game, you’ve let your audience down.

I’ve also been playing Scribblenauts, I’m only a couple worlds in so far, but it’s really really fun, and though I can understand the complaints about “wonky” controls at times, that really shouldn’t deter anyone with a DS and a passion for puzzle solving from playing this game. I understand this team is now working on something for XBLA, I’ll be keeping my eye open for that, perhaps with some more power behind it they can put something together without the shortcoming on the DS.