A live action sequence featuring Jack Black kicks the game off and makes you feel as though you're about to watch a movie rather than play a videogame, then you're presented with possibly one of the coolest menu screens ever seen in a videogame (based around a record sleeve) which is a joy to use. Features like this and the 100+ heavy metal songs plus numerous winks and nods to heavy metal as a genre show that this is a well-researched game with a fairly specific market in mind, almost too specific possibly, as some of the nods and winks will be lost on the more casual gamer who's not up on his heavy metal knowledge.

The first thing that strikes you about this game is the visuals. Larger than life characters (literally in the case of your Jack Black-voiced protagonist) give the game a loud cartoony feel, and anyone who is a fan of the character designs in any of the Guitar Hero games will be quickly won over by the undeniably fun folk of Brutal Legend.

The story is best taken with a pinch (or mountain) of salt, and basically involves your character Eddie being transported to a heavy metal universe by way of spilling blood on his magic belt buckle. Sure this may sound ridiculous but once you've seen the first cut-scene and given yourself over to the will of this game, it's all pretty easy to digest.

Sadly, as you traverse the world and complete more missions, more and more gameplay elements are introduced, some being confusing and frustrating. For a start there's the ‘summon’ system in which you're asked to input a button sequence a-la Guitar Hero, to make Eddie play his guitar and in turn make stuff happen (summoning car, recruiting troops etc) although innovative, and far less headache inducing than actual Guitar Hero, these bits don't lend themselves well to the flow of the game and the player is often left to frantically tap in the sequences whilst being attacked - which can be pretty frustrating. Another core feature of the gameplay are the Real Time Strategy battles in which Eddie commands his heavy metal troops to attack/stay, these parts feel somewhat unresponsive and although I hoped I would learn to master them, I didn't really feel the whole idea was executed that well.