Posts Tagged ‘Double Fine’

Review: Brütal Legend (PS3, Xbox 360)

Wednesday, October 14th, 2009

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The Charge:
A slice of gaming heaven that is louder than hell!

Opening Statement:
My hands quaked as I tore away the plastic cocoon as I had done countless times before.  Visions of a teenager tracing his fingertips along the stack of heavy metal vinyl’s he had been given ownership of for an entire summer flashed before my eyes.  I could feel a deep pulse building in the pit of my very being, like the marching hooves of an iron clad war machine.  Just holding the disc, I could feel its electricity dance between my digits, threatening to suddenly spark, sending a jolt straight to my brain.  As searing tears of joy carved trails down my face, and my bear trap grin spread wide and vicious, I looked up to the clouds and held aloft the horns in praise of the metal gods.  Brütal Legend, Double Fine overseer Tim Schafer’s latest baby has arrived on crimson wings, its fiery mane blazing with the undulating power of heavy metal.  But is Schafer’s latest labor of love a face-melting, soul thrashing, black magic epic, or another sad stroll down Hollywood Boulevard?

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Hold On… Activision Wanted To Turn Brutal Legend Into A Guitar Hero Game!?

Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009

brutal_legend The plot thickens. Double Fine, developers of the upcoming Brutal Legend, filed a countersuit against Activision, who are suing to block the game’s October release. News of that suit hit during E3, and struck a lot of people (most notably the game’s creator Tim Schafer) as sour grapes. Activision had the chance to publish Legend when it bought Vivendi, but chose not to. Now it seems that one of the reasons they made that choice was because they couldn’t shoehorn it into their prolific Guitar Hero franchise. At least, that’s what it says in the suit, as reported by Yahoo! News (as linked from Joystiq).

If true, I officially have zero sympathy for Activision. It’s one thing for them to pull a George Costanza and pretend they didn’t quit on Brutal Legend. It’s another for them to have dropped the game in the first place because they couldn’t turn Tim Schafer’s baby into the thousandth entry in an “annualizable” franchise. That is so not rock ‘n’ roll!