Tim Schafer, founder of Double Fine Productions and designer of Brutal Legend, is one of the very few people in the industry who could say his resume doesn’t include a single bad game. Unfortunately, those games–particularly Grim Fandango and Psychonauts–are notorious for not selling well. With Brutal Legend, Schafer seemed to be consciously trying to break that tradition. He got a big name voice cast, including Jack Black, Tim Curry, and metal legends Ozzy Osbourn, Lita Ford, Lemmy Kilmister and Rob Halford. He licensed 108 heavy metal tunes for the soundtrack. And as the game neared release, he and EA proceeded to market the hell out of it with comedic Jack Black ads, several gameplay videos narrated by Schafer and other, less conventional, promos. Of course, the question is whether it’s worth all the promotion. And if you’re okay with the game not being quite like what was advertised, then the answer is yes.
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Meanwhile, Kojima is engaging in his usual hyperbole while promoting MGS: Peace Walker. Most recently, he claimed that “I haven’t announced this yet, but there’s another feature in [Peace Walker] that will surprise people, to the point where they’ll want to go out and buy a PSP right now!” Hmm, given that the PS3 didn’t make me want to get a second job, I view that claim as rather dubious.
