Wii version hints continue to surface

Adding further credibility to the heavy rumours that Brutal Legend is getting a Wii version is the latest issue of Nintendo Power’s interview with Jennifer Hale, who you might know better as Naomi Hunter or one of the other billion things she’s done voice acting for:

Voice actor Jennifer Hale is totally working on Brutal Legend, but Nintendo Power doesn’t want to name names for some reason. In the interview with Hale, NP describes her current project as “a game featuring Jack Black written by Tim Schafer.” Jennifer herself, responding to a question about standout game scripts, says “One I worked on written by Tim Schafer (don’t know if I’m free to say the name of the game yet): fantastic, funny and so cool.”

Brutal Legend coming out on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 is obviously no secret, but Nintendo Power’s avoidance of naming the game definitely implies they have some kind of secrecy order slapped on them. Following the leaked publishing schedule and Variety’s sources, my gut feeling at this point is that we can call the Wii version ‘confirmed’.

Official Brutal Legend site updates, becomes actual website

With the original official Brutal Legend site going offline and being replaced with what was pretty much a splash page after Electronic Arts decided to take on Brutal Legend, it’s finally been renovated and has become a proper site with a blog and everything.

Well, the blog is pretty much it for the time being. But that’s still well worth visiting for in itself, so be sure to get over there and subscribe away! They also have a new newsletter which is reputed to deliver the most brutal goodies ever right to your inbox.

Variety convinced Brutal Legend is coming to the Wii

Following on from the earlier GoNintendo report about Brutal Legend being slated for a Wii release, the internet has been abuzz for a few days after an ambiguous reply by Tim Schafer when asked whether or not it’s actually coming: “We are making an Xbox 360 and a PS3 version of Brutal Legend“.

Proving itself as a fairly reliable source several times now, Variety has gone ahead and said the Wii version is definitely coming after questioning several of its own sources. Apparently the Wii version won’t be developed by Double Fine — similarly to how the PlayStation 2 version of Psychonauts wasn’t — and will probably come out a good while later.

It’s quite probable the Wii will struggle with the sheer scope of Brutal Legend, though. As we’ve learnt in the recent previews, it’s an open world game; battles can have around 80 units on screen; and it has a pretty serious multiplayer offering — in fact, Schafer says they developed the multiplayer before the single-player game.

A preview from IGN, an interview from USATODAY.com

While readers of the Community Tracker will have noticed the USATODAY.com preview that was posted earlier, I’ve noticed while reading through it on my lunch break that there’s an interview with Tim Schafer tucked away in there too — damn!

During the interview, Schafer sums up why even those who aren’t really into metal will still love Brutal Legend:

“Every little detail, every interaction, has some reward for the player, and I think that is important [...] Monkey Island wasn’t for people who just love pirates, and Full Throttle was not just for bikers. It’s that we use the lore of pirates and the lore of bikers to create a world that is unique.”

IGN has been handling the preview side of things, which reveals numerous details such as how the game begins, how various mechanics work, and also a little mention of the elusive multiplayer. However, be warned that this preview does detail the opening experience of the game, so if you’d rather it be a surprise you’re advised not to read this.

A summary of the key points of IGN’s preview without the spoilers:

• Eddie’s axe is called the Seperator, and his guitar is Clementine
• The guitar will be capable of unleashing a broad variety of attacks, including the Earthshaker for messing up the environment and the Relic Raiser for raising ancient artefacts
• The main world spans about 64 square kilometres
• The primary way of progressing seems to be comparable to games like Fable 2, where you can go to missions and then choose to take them on at your leisure
• Larger encounters in the game will be up to around 40 versus 40
• One of the multiplayer modes will be called ‘Battle of the Bands’

Update

[April 3rd, 2009 at 9:41pm GMT+1] Various other previews have started appearing throughout the day, so keep an eye on the Community Tracker if you’re interested in them. Particularly noteworthy is that one reveals Eddie’s car to have a radio, loaded with an extensive library of quality metal.

That kind of answers a long-standing mystery about how exactly the music will be integrated with the game, with Peter McConnell who did the music for past Tim Schafer classics like Full Throttle, Grim Fandango, and Psychonauts presumably handling the more compositional stuff during the missions and cutscenes.

Big batch of screenshots and renders released

While you’ll already know this if you subscribe to the superb BRUTAL! Community Tracker, the biggest set of Brutal Legend screenshots yet has been released by EA.

I have to say, Double Fine have done a great job of polishing the game up as it draws closer to release — it’s looking much better in pretty much all ways than earlier screenshots did.

Including screenshots of some of the main characters that we’ve never seen before — I’ll have to get those pages updated soon! –  this new collection also shows quite a few new area types in the game.

In addition to the new screenshots, there’re also two new renders in the equally new ‘Renders’ gallery.