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Prepare for the most brutal E3 yet

News posted by Ryan on May 26th, 2009 at 10:39pm GMT

Official Brutal Legend E3 siteAs you’re probably aware, E3 is a yearly trade show that brings together the games industry and press. Although it looked like the event was history a couple of years ago, it’s returning to full throttle this year — and it’s opening up to regular consumers, too.

It’s going to be an especially exciting week for Brutal Legend fans. To get things started, Brutal Legend designer Tim Schafer is going to open himself up to questions from Twitter-using followers of the game on June 2nd.

All you have to is message @BrutalLegend with the hashtag #E3BL after 6pm PST on June 2nd. If you don’t have a Twitter account, head over to the official Brutal Legend E3 site for an alternative way to submit questions. You’ll also find a countdown to the chat event.

And while you’re on the official Brutal Legend E3 site, you’ll notice that not only is there a new ‘Brutal Thoughts with Jack Black’ video coming on June 2nd called ‘Human Video Game’, but you can also win a real-life version of the Tenacious D guitar! Simply sign up for the official newsletter to stand a chance of caressing that sweet, sweet guitar.

Besides all this, expect a slew of new Brutal Legend previews, media, etc next week!

‘Brutal Thoughts with Jack Black’ premieres

News posted by Ryan on May 21st, 2009 at 8:57pm GMT

'Brutal Thoughts with Jack Black' Episode 1: WorkoutElectronic Arts has launched a new series of webisodes featuring Jack Black, as well as other staple characters like Brutal Legend designer Tim Schafer. The first episode is now available in the ‘Videos’ section, and runs for about a minute and a half.

Although there’s no word on how many of these we can expect, chances are there’ll be a good few more before the game’s Rocktober release date. Alas there’s no footage of Brutal Legend itself buried in there, but at least you get to see Schafer!

You’ll also notice that the BRUTAL! video facilities have been changed somewhat. All videos are now hosted on the new BRUTAL! YouTube channel, where you can choose to watch the videos in various levels of quality ranging from ‘worst ever’ to wonderful HD. Be sure to subscribe if you have a YouTube account!

GameSpot delivers seven new screenshots

News posted by Ryan on May 14th, 2009 at 12:16am GMT

brutal_legend_20090513233903Accompanying a fresh impressions article, GameSpot is premiering seven new Brutal Legend screenshots. They’ve been added to the ‘Miscellaneous’ gallery as you’d expect, where you’ll find the first ever look at General Lionwhyte with his long, luscious hair — plus some actual gameplay!

Some new characters and mental creatures are revealed, and all the shots seem to be taken around the extremely foreboding fortress first seen a week ago.

Also be sure to read the actual article because there’s some interesting gameplay info in there. Looks like there’s going to be quite some depth to the tactical side of battles, almost leaning upon real-time strategy game-like mechanics. But much more direct and brutal, naturally.

Thanks to Anders for giving me a buzz about this!

Get your hands on the brutal art of Brutal Legend

News posted by Ryan on May 7th, 2009 at 2:52pm GMT

brutal_legend_20090507141450Remember the ‘Brutal Art of Brutal Legend‘ panel that I posted about way back in March? Were you as disappointed as me when none of the wonderful art to be discussed during the presentation actually made its way to the public?

Fret no more, because you’ll find that a total of 26 images have been added to the BRUTAL! galleries: eight in the ‘Concept Art’ gallery, and 18 in the ‘Miscellaneous’ gallery.

There is some pretty awesome stuff here, showing aspects of the development and game that haven’t been seen before. For example, check out an abandoned Eddie concept with a distinctly Lemmy-esque vibe; you can also see a number of different vehicles, loads of unseen environments, and even the first beast himself Ormagöden.

Clearly there’s going to be a breathtaking amount of environmental variety and eye candy in Brutal Legend, with superb art direction holding it all together. Thanks very much to Noyb for providing these images.

Update

[May 8th, 2009 at 9:36am GMT+1] Some people have pointed out that these images have a slightly blurry quality to them. I just want to clarify that these are unavoidably a little blurrier than the game proper will look as they’re derived from a compressed presentation shown at Game Developers Conference, and were re-scaled to fit the presentation hardware.

Tenacious D in-game guitar if you pre-order

News posted by Ryan on May 6th, 2009 at 4:38pm GMT

Tenacious D guitarIf you were kind of thinking about pre-ordering Brutal Legend rather than waiting to pick it up once it hits the shops, there’s now one massive incentive to do it via GameStop: an epic guitar that can be used instead of Clementine, built from the demonic force of Tenacious D.

The exclusive Tenacious D guitar features:

  1. New sound effects
  2. New voice-over work from Jack Black and Kyle Gass
  3. New visual effects suite

Clearly you have no option but to go and pre-order Brutal Legend right now. You may also want to check out a screenshot of the guitar.

An interesting tidbit revealed by this news is that there’ll presumably be an in-game way to switch between Clementine and the Tenacious D guitar. Possible implication that there’ll be many more to find and use throughout the game?