Brutal Legend (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
common sense media says
Jack Black as funny rocker roadie, but expect gory violence.
parents & educators say
- 67% say language is an issue
- 44% say violence is an issue
What parents need to know
Parents need to know that Brutal Legend is all about fantasy and does not look realistic at all. That being said it does show graphic violence including decapitation, dismemberment, and mass killings (such as driving over a group of baddies). Eddie, the roadie protagonist voiced by Jack Black, has a number of weapons and special powers at his disposal to fight demonic creatures -- some who look human-like. Players, though, are asked at the start of the game if they're OK with blood and gore, and profanity and have an option to turn these aspects off.
Positive role models:
Eddie is a hard-working roadie who takes pride in his work, and he tries to save the life of a band member at the beginning of the game. He performs other selfless acts in the game, such as trying to rescue his love interest and save enslaved "headbangers." Eddie, however, smokes a lot and uses weapons to defeat evil in gruesome ways.
Ease of play:
The game is fairly easy to control, but switching special powers (by using a spinning disc interface) takes a bit of getting used to.
Violence:
While it's very cartoon-like in its graphics and delivery, this fantasy action game features plenty of violence, including the ability to hack and slash demonic armies with your double-sided axe, reducing them to bloody "gibs." This dismemberment is sometimes shown in slow-motion with blood flowing. You can also drive over baddies, shock them with lightning, or command others to head-bang them to death, all shown in vivid detail.
Sex:
No sex is in the game, but there are strong verbal references to sex ("going down," "orgy" and sight gags such as gamers led to believe that Eddie is looking at someone's penis). Plus, many of the women in the game are scantily clad, showing legs, cleavage and partially revealing buttocks and breasts. Some have leather outfits -- implying bondage, perhaps.
Language:
At the start of the game players have the option to hear profanity, which includes the F- and S-words, as well as "hell," "damn," "d-ck, "and "bastard."
Consumerism:
The game's soundtrack features many heavy metal acts from yesterday and today but most of the game characters who resemble real-life rock stars (and who are voiced by them) have a slightly different name.
Drinking, drugs, & smoking:
Eddie, the main character, can be seen smoking cigarettes quite a bit in this game, along with other characters who smoke, flick cigarette butts, blow smoke, and so on. You can also see women holding what appears to be beer and liquor bottles.
More on Brutal Legend
Screenshots
Review It
Based on 9 parent & educator reviews:
- 67% say language is an issue
- 44% say violence is an issue
- 44% say there are positive role models
- 33% say there's too much drinking, drugs, or smoking
- 33% say sexual content is an issue
Most useful reviews by all members
Tobuji
teen, 17 years old
teen, 17 years old
just use the in-game filters
brutal legend is a great game. many of the complaints in the review, can easily be solved by using the games language and gore filter. which cuts out most substatial amounts of gore, and bleeps out most of the profanity. unfortunatly, it the language filter doesn't work when using the radio in your car.
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haloisgood
parent
parent
great game
jack black does an amazing job in this realy good game but for mature gamers only
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XxMuSiCjUnKiEXx
teen, 16 years old
teen, 16 years old
Not for younger audiences, very fun
this game is pretty fun and incredibly funny. the game allows players to turn off language and gore, so this game can be perfect for any kid age 11+. the main character is an iffy role model but definitely has great qualities
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Tom_Gamer_Tom
adult
adult
Brutal, Just as the title suggests.
BRUTAL Legend is a mature game with an option to turn Blood and profanity off, Its no fun to turn that off but its fine for younger people now. Without the filter. There is decapitation to the masses, tons of blood. A lot of language, As soon as you choose not to have the filter. There is a stream of profanity. Its no good with the filter. Its fine.
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scott pilgrim
parent of 8 and 10 year old
parent of 8 and 10 year old
great for kids 17 and up
I acually love this game. I've passed the whole game, and I personally think it is too violent for kids 16 and under.
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tvgirl
adult
adult
Okay, first and foremost I am a HUGE Jack Black fan dating back to 1999's Tenacious D skits on HBO. So when I heard that he was going to do a video game, I was pumped. For a month I awaited the game's release. Now that I have bought it, what can I say? It surpassed my expectations. It is extremely fun to play with awesome background music containing 108 songs of heavy metal rock. Parents, this is extremely violent with the expected explicit vulgar language. But there is a catch: the game lets you (in mid-gameplay) chose to bleep or unbleep language and to edit violent images out the game entirely. So, uncensored cut I give a 16+ to. Censored gameplay is a fair 14 and older. Enjoy the game, I know I will. A side note: the game is $59.99, so I did buy it, but I suggest renting it first simply for the rediculous price. 5/5 stars. Extremely recommended to all gamers. This game is a comedy-action-musical with the biggest free-roaming world I've ever played on (64x64 kilometers of open space, in real-world measurements that is 40 miles by 40 miles.) ENJOY & ROCK ON!!
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chinstafa
parent of 14 year old
parent of 14 year old
Great game
I let my 13 year old son play it, and he had a blast! I played a few hours of the game(not in one sitting) and it was great. The only problem is the language, luckily, you can turn it off at the beginning of the game, and any point during it.
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blkcr
kid, 13 years old
kid, 13 years old
TEEN ESRB screwed up
Its great but not gory so it should be TEEN
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pleon1423
kid, 12 years old
kid, 12 years old
Brutal Legend is a cool game for people who love violence. I played it with my friends and it was awesome. They also show your favorite metal stars like Motorhead and Ozzy Osbourne.
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Thereasonwecan ...
adult
adult
A good educational title that introduces your children to the overlooked, yet beautiful genre of music, heavy metal.
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Tom Byron
educator and parent of 14 and 18 year old
educator and parent of 14 and 18 year old
Great game! Foul language and violence can be turned off. Thumbs up!
Great game. Foul language and violence can be turned off. Still doesn't make it a family game, but does lower the appropriate age from around 15 to closer to 12 (depending on your child). The game was designed by Tim Schafer, renowned for his clever plots and humorous dialogue. Disclosure: I have only played a couple hours of the game, but so far I've let my 13 year old play it (with the language and violence toned down).
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kid, 12 years old
GO to *g4tv*
HEAVY METAL ROCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YAAAA!!!! buy this game you MUST!!!!
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GO to *g4tv*
HEAVY METAL ROCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YAAAA!!!! buy this game you MUST!!!!
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kid, 11 years old
GO to *g4tv*
HEAVY METAL ROCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YAAAA!!!! buy this game you MUST!!!!
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The-Edge
teen, 18 years old
teen, 18 years old
A Metal Head's Must Have
Oh my God... This, THIS is some game. I'm not even sure I should call it a game, its beyond that...its epicness on an entire new level. I'll start with the obvious...The Soundtrack is simply the best soundtrack to be found on any game of any kind. This game has elements of all form of Metal, even the gothy s**t. Judas Priest, Motorhead, Iced Earth, In Flames, Motley Crue, Black Sabbath, Ozzy Osbourne need I say more. The soundtrack compliments the game beautifully. That, and the fact that its the best Metal around. The Landscape is beyond belief. The designers went all out to create a landscape thats fluent and combines so many different fantasy style landscapes such as Arctic Ice Cliffs, Foggy Swamps, the lot. The landmarks around the map are spectacular and fit into the land brilliantly and cleverly use references to Metal Culture like the Iron Cross and the Mount Rockmore Feature is very clever. The Story is typical RPG awsomeness. I won't spoil it for you but you will love it if you even experience just the smallest chapter of the story. The Characters are funny, believable, use rock gods as characters and their names use references of rock gods. One of the characters, Lita Halford gets her name from Lita Ford and Rob Halford. The Gameplay is fantastically simple. Most of the story is spent locked is Stage Battles which is good fun if your farmiliar with Stratagy Games, free play aspect allows you to fully explore the world around you, the combat aspect is simple and fun and the guitar solo section of the game will be very fun if your farmiliar with Guitar Hero or Rock Band Games. The Online stage battles are fun, easy and can be very unpredictable so its all good. Overall the Game is a Gem, it can be good for young ones too because you can turn the gore and swearing off if the player wants to so parents won't have to worry about their kids seeing too much violence. But overall, it is unrealisticly fantastic!
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gamr
adult
adult
just read it
This game can be a bit violent and profanity can get a bit over the top at times but everyone should know this can be all but turned off. This option is presented at the beginning of the game and at anytime throughout. With language beeped out and the same amount of violence as the super smash bros series this game can be transformed from a rated M game to a T rated game.
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Anandbasi1998
teen, 14 years old
teen, 14 years old
good game.....at first.
This game is very good......at first, after about 4 hours into the game it gets extremely dull and repetitive.
so it is worth a rent and if you can find it less then £5 ($10) then you should buy it. you never know, you love it, i didnt like it later in the game but people out there may love it from beggining to end.
overall the game is violent and swearts alot but its very cartoony.
in the opening cutscene there is a bit where eddie (jack black) says "you stupid mother f......" it then pauses and asked you if you want profanity on. if you say yes then he will say "......f*cking piece of sh*t!" if you sau no it will be bleeped.
for blood and gore it there is a bit where these guys heads come off. if you say yes to blood and gore it will show it coming off in detail. if not then the bodies wil just collapse. this was a very good way of cencoring games and i wish other games did this (dead space) or did it like this (call of duty black ops)
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Keriosaga
adult
adult
Amazing story, not so great gameplay.
Overall, this is a great game. I've actually wanted to play it for a while, and just a few days ago I bought it at a surplus store for $5. (Must not have sold well. Lol.) One thing, the game does have pretty bad language. BUT, you can turn on the language and gore filter which will "beep" out the language and stop the blood. I do believe though that there is still some dismemberment, just no blood. And as the beeping, if your child has ever heard bad language before, it is not hard to tell what he is saying even over the beep. There is some slightly suggestive themes for sexuality, such as talking about french kissing, and also one character ends up wearing slightly reviling clothing. (Ripped up, can see navel and some cleavage.) Also, as for violence, there is an important cut-scene where you end up decapitating a demon. I don't know if it would not show it with the gore filter on or not. One of the greatest aspects of the game is the music and the world itself, and also the storyline. A very unique storyline, honestly I think it would make an amazing movie or animated movie. I loved the storyline. There are certain places you can find that trigger cut-scenes that explain the history pretty well. You can really get into the story. And the different factions in the game are pretty well done. Half way through the game you meet a new faction and the story for that part is pretty good.
But, the bad part, the actual game-play is not that great. If you just focus on the main "quest" you can finish the game in about 4 hours. The side quests are very repetitive such as "ambushing" enemies and firing motor cannons to defeat enemies. The only real purpose for doing these side quests is to earn "Fire Tribute" which you can use to upgrade the Deuce (Your car, also, you can run over enemies and shoot from your car. Forgot to mention that.) and to purchase upgrades for your Axe or your Guitar, Paint Jobs for your car and other such upgrades. There is also a hunting side mission where you hunt down a certain amount of specific creatures, and a racing side mission where you race Fletus around following a light marker shining down from the sky. (Kinda hard to follow some times.) Also, the stage battles are more strategic, you have to collect fans, build towers over fan geysers, then spend the fans for upgrades to your stage, and then recruit new troops. Then you have to order your troops to defend your towers, and to destroy enemy towers. Finally getting to the enemy stage to destroy it. This part of the game (Stage battles) is not very well designed. You don't have any type of map, so you can't find your troops easy, and it's just slightly difficult to play a stage battle.
But other then side jobs, The only thing else to really do it explore to find different parts of the world to free dragon spirits, and unlock all the legends and find all the binocular skulls to view all the landmarks.
Overall, It is a pretty decent game. The music and storyline make the game "Brutal" and extremely fun. Even though short lived. I personally beat the game in 5 days, even doing a lot of the side quests. (You get prizes for finishing all racing and hunting missions.Just letting you know. They are worth it too.) I would say go out and rent it for a week and beat it. Not much re-playability.
Also, the music is not censored even if you have the language filter on. When you get in the car you can turn the stereo on and off so I guess you can just turn off the stereo. I actually had a party and started up the game and hopped in the car so we could listen to the amazing music in the game. Lol.
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