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.

New BRUTAL! features added

With the volume of news and media that BRUTAL! covers only growing, numerous additions and changes have been implemented across the site to make things a bit easier. Most of these are minor tweaks, however there are two major additions to be aware of:

Community Tracker

On the front page you’ll find the new Community Tracker, which avoids all the fuzz and gets straight to the point. It exists as a condensed preview on the front page, and as a standalone Twitter-like feed. It can also be subscribed to via RSS or email.

The general idea is that while major news stories and whatnot will continue to be posted in the main news, smaller tidbits such as random rumours and interesting Brutal Legend-related blog posts will be posted on the community tracker. Reviews, previews, and other such things will also eventually make an appearance.

Additionally, any updates to BRUTAL!‘s own content such as the addition of new screenshots, etc will be posted on the Community Tracker — until now this has largely happened behind the scenes. In fact, if you check it right now you might notice four awesome new screenshots.

Fan Art

The new Fan Art section is in essence just another gallery, but it’s one where user participation is encouraged more than ever. If you can produce beautiful art, be sure to have your work immortalised here!

While I’ve made an earnest effort to get in touch with talented artists so their work can be featured, the hope is that those of you who know to tickle eyes the right way will submit your own art. If you make something particularly awesome you might even end up in the main news.

1UP launches week-long Brutal Legend article series

1UP has just launched a Brutal Legend article series that will feature wordy delights about Brutal Legend and its creator Tim Schafer every day this week, starting with the first that appeared last night.

The aforementioned first article takes a detailed look at Tim Schafer’s life, spanning a whopping eight pages and delving into things ranging from early bands he was in to how he ended up making the games we all know and love. Here’s one little gem from Monkey Island creator Ron Gilbert:

“We had a job opening for a programmer on Monkey Island and received a stack of resumes. Tim didn’t submit a normal resume. He did it as a comic showing him getting interviewed, accepting the job, and showing up to work on his first day. We all laughed a lot and then there must have been some clerical error somewhere up the chain and we hired him.”

Also look forward to discussion about Tim’s past games, what other people in the games industry of him and his legendary games, and of course some Brutal Legend tidbits. Judging by the quality of this first instalment, this is going to be a terrific week of articles.

Here’s the full list of features on the agenda:

1. Tim Schafer Profile (March 30th, 2009)
2. Metal Movies That Should Be Games (March 31st, 2009)
3. 10 Things You Don’t Know (April 1st, 2009)
4. Retrospective Blogs (April 2nd, 2009)
5. Brütal Legend Preview (April 3rd, 2009)

Thanks to Justin Cogley for being on the ball and letting me know about this!

The Brutal Art of Brutal Legend

The ‘Brutal Art of Brutal Legend’ panel is now over at this year’s Game Developers Conference, and going off Kotaku’s write-up it sounds like it was a pretty superb showing:

“Here are the ingredients to a successful GDC panel: visually entertaining slides, more than one trailer, halfway-decent public speaker, a game that’s actually coming out in the near future. And Tim Schafer.”

Aside from a lot of technical talk — this is a game developers conference, after all — Double Fine art director Lee Petty talks about the challenges of making a huge open-world game that’s so artistically rich, and has all sorts of different themes to portray (goth, emo, etc).

He also stresses how important good sky art is, seeing as it fills at least half the screen in many games and yet is often neglected by developers. Sounds like they’re doing a great job of doing the sky justice:

“A tranquil orange evening sky turned into a swirling cyclone of purple with long streaks of lighting, then it became a clear blue daytime dotted with fluffy white clouds before melting into a pitch-black night lit up by a meteor shower.”

There’s no word on whether or not we’re actually going to see the videos used to demonstrate the game during this presentation, although there’s supposedly another embargo that ends in a week so they may appear around then. Unless some naughty site with little integrity goes ahead and posts them anyway!

Update

[March 28th at 12:42am GMT+1] Game developer favourite Gamasutra has now unleashed its write-up of the talk, which goes into quite a bit more detail than Kotaku’s.

Kotaku snaps Brutal Legend concept art

With the Game Developers Conference that I wrote about a couple of months ago now underway, new Brutal Legend media is starting to spill onto the internet. Although the Brutal Legend-related talks at GDC haven’t yet taken place, Double Fine has allowed the press to take a look around their studio and see what’s going on.

There’s currently an embargo on posting specific details about the game; however, gaming blog Kotaku has been granted permission to post their photos of the visit, which showcase a whole load of Brutal Legend concept art and other Double Fine paraphernalia.

There’re at least a few dozen pieces of concept art visible in Kotaku’s high-resolution photos, complete with various captions and whatnot which hint at the kind of things we’re going to see in the game. We can see new enemies named, maps of areas in the game, and various other interesting tidbits.

Once GDC has settled down I’ll take the time to dissect these a bit and work out what exactly they reveal, but if you spot anything interesting in the photos don’t hesitate to post a comment!

Thanks to Jeff Moeller for giving me a remarkably fast heads-up on these.