Brutal Legend is not only a game but a visit back to Heavy Metal for most people. Double Fine Productions is extending that fandom by teaming up with Mishka NYC to create two Brutal t-shirts.

The Headbanger graphic above shows the spirit of Ironheade’s loyal foot soldiers. It looks like a combination of metal and punk in a pit.

The second shirt is my favorite. It features a Razorgirl charging forward on a Fire Beast. Just an average day in her world.

Over the next few months fans can watch the Facebook, twitter and website to see how they can get a tshirt. But right now, Mishka’s Bloglin has 2 copies of Brutal Legend for Xbox 360 and another 2 for Playstation 3 to give away. All you have to to is to email brutal@mishkanyc.com with either Xbox or PS3 in the subject line to be entered to win. Winners will be notified by Friday, November 20th.

Rock on angels!

(JORMUNGAND © 2006 Keitarou TAKAHASHI/Shogakukan

Keitaro Takahashi’s action adventure series Jormungand is coming to a bookstore near you this Tuesday. It’s part of the Viz Signature imprint line, rated M for Mature and will retail at $12.99 US/$16.99 CDN.

Many thanks to Viz for providing some more details about this enticing new manga.

Jonah is a child soldier, born amidst the chaotic conflicts that rage across West Asia. His family was lost to a war fueled by weapons supplied by the so-called Merchants of Death – international arms dealers. Despite Jonah’s hatred of weapons and violence, he employs them extremely well in the service of high-flying arms dealer named Koko Hekmatyar and her band of mercenaries. Their journey through the dark underbelly of the world’s arms markets may lead to damnation, but will Jonah somehow make his way back to the light? Only one thing is certain: it’s going to be a long, hard road out of hell… Death is their business, and business is good!

In Volume 1, Koko Hekmatyar, the head of H&C Logistic Incorporated, introduces new recruit Jonah to her expert team of troubleshooters, and it isn’t long before they find some trouble to shoot. An Eastern European government official holds up a shipment of aircraft parts that would shift the balance of power in the region. But the real trouble is that shipment belongs to Koko, and she’s not about to miss an opportunity to make a profit, even if it means two nations go to war!

“JORMUNGAND takes its name from the fabled ferocious sea serpent in Norse mythology, and readers will be at the edge of their seats with this fierce band of mercenaries that live up to the name with an insatiable taste for trouble and gunplay,” says Gonzalo Ferrerya, Vice President, Sales & Marketing. “JORMUNGAND is a must-read for any action fan, and Keitaro Takahashi’s manga delivers plenty of bullet-riddled adventures as he fills each chapter with plenty of shady characters, double deals, and enough heavy metal weaponry to make any modern paramilitary jealous! Just remember to keep your head down and eyes glued to the page!”

You can pre-order Jormungand Volume 1 from RightStuf so as not to miss out on day one.

Disclaimer: This review is based on the review build that was sent out. The final version of the game may have some slight differences and tweaking of gameplay.

I haven’t played a good hack and slash game in a very long time. So when you tell me about a game that incorporates zombies into it…. well, I’m sold! Tecmo Games has done just that, with a great new game for the PSP – Undead Knights.

The story is a simple one: the King, influenced by his hot and busty young new wife, has decided that the House of Blood (a family who has long serviced the throne) should be wiped out. Little did the King know that his daughter had just married into the family, and the House Leader Romulus, the princess Sylvia and her new husband Remus were slaughtered on their way to share the joyous news with her father. The House of Blood has powerful blood pumping through its veins, and so in death, the three are reborn, commanding forces of the living dead as they systematically destroy those who were behind their murders.

Let’s begin with choosing which character is right for you!

Romulus: The most balanced of the three, Romulus wields a decent blade and has decent recovery time between hits. He is good for the beginner player.

Remus: Speed makes up for his weaker rapier attacks.

Sylvia: Her scythe attacks do heavy damage, but her slow movements leave her vulnerable to attacks.

Characters are chosen at the start of each chapter, so if you find one isn’t working out for you in a particular chapter, you can always chose another when you restart. You will also choose your difficulty level for each chapter, thus allowing yourself to face tougher challenges.

There are 20 chapters in Undead Knights, providing you with tons of zombie minions to clear the way for you. Turning zombies is relatively easy. Hold the Circle button to perform a choke hold on the enemy. As you progress through the game, you will find that some enemies need to be grabbed twice as they become stronger than earlier levels. Another way to turn zombies is by activating a powerful Wrath move that will instantly kill and turn any enemies caught in its wake. Sometimes you need to stun the soldier before you can grab him. Using the Triangle and Square buttons you can attack your enemies and weaken them.

There are several things you can do with your newly turned minions. They can climb on top of each other to build bridges, take down structures for you, and you can throw them at larger enemies to stun and distract them. The most important command you want to give them is to attack the enemies. By stringing together attacks you will increase the amount of White Souls you earn at the end of the chapter.

On the topic of souls, green ones will replenish some health, and red souls will help fill your Wrath bar quicker. Red souls are generally found in giant chests hidden in each level, while green souls comes from destructible vases and other such items.

At the end of each chapter you will be ranked on Souls Earned and Clear Time. The combination of the two ranks will then give you an overall rank and determine the amount of Dark Energy you have earned for customization. Upgrading your character is key in this game. By doing so you will be able to increase your strength and the destructive power of your weapons. Keep in mind that Dark Energy is shared between all three characters, so upgrade accordingly.

As you progress through the game you will also notice that you unlock Revenge Titles at the end of chapters. You can check which Titles you have gained in the Records of Revenge. You can also see your chapter records from this section as well.

Ad-hoc mode will let you hook up with friends for various multiplayer matches. Survival Race, King Battle and Undead Battle. Unfortunately I was not able to try out these mode for the review, but I bet they are a blast.

Fans of metal music will love the soundtrack to the game. There are three metal groups who have music featured in the game: Lightning Swords of Death, Endless Blizzard, and Valdur.

Overall Opinion: As far as hack & slash games go, this one ranks right up there for me. I normally don’t enjoy these titles too much, or at least I haven’t since the original Devil May Cry. (The sequels just weren’t fun for me at all.) It also was another reason to charge up my PSP and use the thing again. There isn’t a whole lot of dialogue in the game, but for what there is, the voice acting was just the right amount of cheesiness. If this was ever to get the movie makeover, it would have to have Bruce Campbell star in it.

I really enjoyed the game, although I did run into a couple instances that I am 100% sure will be fixed for the retail release. You can just pick it up and play a couple levels at a time then come back to it later on or play it through in a sitting. Sylvia was my Anti-Hero of choice, and I loved every minute I spent swinging that enormous scythe around the screen. And while not a big metal fan, I did find that the soundtrack was extremely fitting for the game. I am so glad that I was able to enjoy this title earlier than I originally expected to.

Brutal Legend logo

Here’s the last part of our interview with Tim Schafer. It’s been pretty epic so far. Here we go!

Q: As the world opens up beyond the tutorial, can you give examples of some of the missions in there and will there be cool metal stuff to unlock or uncover?

A: The references are woven into it. If you are familiar with metal you’ll see bits and pieces mixed together and placed in the world. Some missions are just Eddie and his ax focusing on combat. On other missions you start building your army and use the dpad to control these guys. Eventually you have such a big army that you have a whole army on the battlefield at once and you get to pick and choose which ones to add to the battle. That’s when it expands to be full out heavy metal warfare.

Q: Are there any plans to add post-content to the game?

A: We’re currently talking about DLC. We want to do stuff that will be fun and that we have time to do. Nothing is concrete yet, but we’d like to expand the world sure.

Q: If Brutal Legends does really well in sales, will there be another one?

A: *laughs* That would be great! I would love that but um, we’ll have to see.

Q: Do you have dreams of making it into an episodic series or a trilogy?

A: There’s a lot of story. When I do a game I usually do a lot of research and backstory. There was a big epic story that we’ve only been able to tell a small part of. I don’t know if episodic is the word but there is definitely more stories to tell in the world of Brutal Legend.

Q: Any original gameplay in multiplayer?

A: It’s a strategic type of battle where you are totally destroying your opponent’s stage. It’s kindof a more complex, not just last minute hacking with an ax. You’re choosing what warriors to add to your army and when you have those warriors you are choosing where they go on the map and then when they capture resources you’re choosing what to do with those resources. Can invest in new units or keep going with headbangers. There’s a lot of depth to it and it’s all about destroying your opponents stage.

Tim Schafer President of Double Fine Productions

Q: What are your thoughts on the recent release of LOOM (on Steam) and LucasArts embracing it’s catalog? Or thoughts on doing a LOOM remake right now?

A: That would be great. I think that would be great for modern players to be able to go back and play those games. I think they are doing it as a “Let’s test the waters”. I’ve heard it was a success so maybe they’ll do more. We’ll see how it goes.

Q: I read that the game originally started as a multiplayer and then you kindof switched to single player. What caused the switch and were there any problems in focusing on single player first?

A: The reason we started with multiplayer is because we knew we wanted to have it. When going into production you have to do the most scariest, hardest thing first. You tackle the hardest problems first cause you don’t want to be doing those as you are right up against your deadline. What do we know the least about? We’ve never done multiplayer, so let’s do that first. Let’s prove that we can make a good multiplayer game.

Q: Is there anything gameplay-wise that will ease casual game players?

A: We have three difficulty modes when you play the game. We have gentle, normal and brutal. We know that the multiplayer game has alot of different mechanics to play the game. We added a video tutorial that you can watch, or the single player game itself is a step by step lesson in how to play multiplayer.

Q: You’ve made very creative games. Do you feel the industry is stifling on creativity and have you ever had to fight to be as creative as you want to?

A: Well thanks, but yeah, but that goes along with if you want to do something interesting or unique you have to be prepared to fight for it. I don’t see a problem with that. If you are going to do what someone else wants you to do then your life is a lot easier, but if you want to do what you want to do then there will always be some fight to it. Once you accept that then I think it’s worth it.

Q: How does working on the game let you have your heavy metal dreams come true?

A: I was 14 in 1981 and the first album I bought was Diary of a Madman by Ozzy Osborn. I still have that album and I got to bring it to the studio and have Ozzy sign it for me and have him tell me all the details of the album. He sat there and told me all about his album covers. If I had made a list when I was 14 years old of people I want to meet it would be a list of people who are in this game.

Q: Strategy games have not historically done well on the console. Was there any concern in adding the strategy element when people may just want the action aspect?

A: Well it is still and action game. There are elements where you are making intelligent choices, but if you play it as just sending your troops forward and then getting in there with your ax it really is an action game. There is some strategy if you want to go deeper. If you jump in there with your ax, you’ll have a good time just playing your guitar or using the double team attack.

Q: How did you decide on the main character being a roadie and not a rock star?

A: I just want to tell a story that has never been told before and I don’t think anyone has ever done a roadie. Roadies have this appeal in that they life out the rockstar’s life in different ways.

Q: Metal is known for over the top, extreme type mentality. What are some things that Eddie can do that is extreme?

SPOILER ALERT!!!
A: He does get to sprout giant, leathery type demonic wings over the battlefield at one point. Of course that won’t be a surprise now because I spoiled that, but if I hadn’t spoiled it, it might be a jaw dropping moment. Other things he does that are over the top, were inspired by Jack Black, like a power slide where you can play a chord and run and slide to hit your enemies.

Q: Out of all the characters you’ve created, do you have a favorite?

A: *laughs* No. I mean I love Eddie. The work Jack did to bring that character to life he really is a special character because he does all the hard work and doesn’t get any of the credit cause he’s a roadie not a rockstar. That kindof appeals to me. You get very attached to characters when you finish a game because you spend alot of time with them.

Q: What are you playing now?

A: Ever since I’ve gotten into the final mode of Brutal Legend, I go home and play Brutal Legend every night. After I put the baby to bed and my wife would leave I would play a few hours of games and then I started feeling stressed out by not playing Brutal Legends every night. Now I’m starting to try and figure that out because I missed some games that I need to check out. Like Fallout 3 I should check out.

Q: What do you think of technology like Natal and are you anxious to use it on a game in the future or maybe a sequel?

A: It’s really interesting. We have been kicking around some ideas for that. I’ve never been really technology driven or new controllers. You always get some ideas, but most of the things I care about are characters and story and you can do that with any controller.

A huge thanks to EA and Tim Schafer for spending the time to talk to us! Brutal Legend will be in retails stores on Rocktober 13th and if you pre-order through GameStop you can get early access to the demo on September 17th, as well as a special in-game guitar inspired by Tenacious D.

Brutal Legend

Here is the second part of our interview with Brutal Legend’s Tim Schafer. Let’s jump right in!

Q: Can you talk about the development lessons you learned on Psychonauts and how that impacted the design and development of Brutal Legends?

A: Psychonauts was kindof developed like an adventure game way. Where we built alot of assets, alot of worlds, built a lot of environments and we built alot of characters. Then on the last minute just pull it all together and make it work. OMG it didn’t work and we’re out of time, so we had to start over on some stuff. Really took a more character centered approach with Brutal Legend where we started with Eddie. We just built Eddie and said what is the central thing for Eddie to do? It’s for Eddie to walk around while playing heavy metal music and swinging his ax around. We just got that working. So we immediately had Eddie and his ax fighting some enemies. That basic visceral feeling of being in a heavy metal world doing ax combat. Then we had the car and you could drive your car over dudes and swing your ax around. That’s when we knew we had something cool.

Q: What was it like working with Jack Black and did you know from the start that you wanted him cast as Eddie Riggs or were there other possibilities?

A: We never thought that we would get Jack Black. I wanted to make a game Jack Black would like. I really thought his sensibility and taste in the school of rock of just like, on the one hand, there is alot of ridiculous stuff in his movies kindof making fun of him and rock itself and the excesses of it. But also obviously done with tons of love. They really love the stuff they are doing. They aren’t just kidding. The whole idea of the awesomeness and the ridiculousness of rock at the same time was something that Jack would tap into. While making this game I hoped that Jack Black plays it because I heard he was a gamer. We thought of him while making the character. We made him look a little bit like Jack, little bit maybe like Danzig too and made him expressive like Jack. When we heard that Jack had played Psychonauts and that he likes Psychonauts we’re like woah maybe we should try and get in touch with him and offer him this thing. We got a meeting with him and I brought down the concept art and laid it out on the table and he said let’s do it. I knew we were making the right kindof game because Jack Black liked it. Working with him was great, he’s a crack up in the studio and a very nice guy.

Q: As a metal fan, what excited you the most about this project?

A: Well alot of different things. I’ve always wanted to do a proper visualization of the fantasy described by heavy metal. I didn’t think the rock videos of the 80s really did it because they didn’t have the budget. I want to create one of these fantasy worlds that is being described in the songs and that you see on the album covers. I want to make a whole world done really elaborately and done really truthfully and let the player walk around in that and have adventures in that. I think we’ve pulled that off and I’m really happy about that. I’m also really excited about people maybe who don’t really like metal, it’s an action game, that has strategy, has a lot of humor, and has alot of entertainment value outside the music. The world of heavy metal makes a cool background to all your adventures. I think that by the end of the game, they’ll have been exposed to so much music that they’ll become heavy metals.

Q: What is your favorite band outside of heavy metal and did any band outside of heavy metal have any influence?

A: I think it’s really about metal. I listen to all kinds of music. Heavy metal is the only one that has lore in their lyrics. There was pressure to include different genres in the game in the first pitching the game, but once we made the world it was this self contained world where heavy metal existed.

Brutal Legend

A: Unfortunately he only knew Cobol so he couldn’t help with the programming too much. Programming joke! *laughs* He mostly was involved in what the character is like and where the character is coming from. He improvised alot. He’ll definitely playing the game and I look forward to his feedback from that.

Q: Will Brutal Legend teach me how to solve a Rubiks Cube?

A: If you watch that video, you’ll learn how to solve a Rubiks Cube. Heavy Metal and Rubiks Cube go together. *laughs* I don’t even know where the idea for the Rubiks Cube came from. But there is one in my hand right now. It’s something I do on the phone.

Q: The most asked question on the community..any chance for a Psychonauts remake for next-gen consoles or a sequel?

A: That would be awesome wouldn’t it? *laughs* I think that would be awesome. I love that game and I would love to do something with it someday. But we aren’t working on that right now. But that would be awesome. If the fans keep talking about it maybe it will happen.

You heard him…keep talking about Psychonauts and maybe it will happen! Stay tuned Sunday for part 3 of our interview…yes it’s not done yet! More awesomeness to come!