The Tears of the Hextadon map pack consists of two new maps for Brutal Legend’s completely non-real-time strategy online multiplayer mode. The Circle of Tears map is completely surrounded by water, while the Death’s Fjord map takes place in an icy mountain path, where players must brave wide open spaces in order to reach the fan geysers needed to generate units.

Double fine’s Tim Schafer explains the map names.

“I play Brütal Legend online every night,” said Tim Schafer, President of Double Fine Productions. “And I need more maps! Circle of Tears is named after the crying of my vanquished foes on the battlefield, and Death’s Fjord is obviously a tribute to my Nordic ancestors, and their love of fan geysers and… Well, actually I just thought the name was cool. See you online!”

He doesn’t explain, however, why the PlayStation 3 version of the downloadable content is free from the November 5 release until November 19, while the Xbox 360 pack costs 400 Microsoft points as soon as it hits Xbox Live on November 3. Perhaps EA is trying to drum up more PS3 business? We’ve contacted EA about the reasoning and will update as soon as we hear back.

It is a historical fact that it began its life as an RTS game, inspired by Herzog Zwei. But then as we worked on it we simplified it, and simplified it, and focused it more and more on the player avatar and the combat. Every time we focused the gameplay on the action, it became more fun. The end result is something much more action-oriented, and I think, totally unique. If you try to play the stage battles in Brütal Legend as an RTS game then you will lose. First you will get mad, then you will scream, and then you will lose. But if you are open to a new kind of action experience, you will have a blast.

Read the full letter, also sent to Kotaku, on the jump.

First, a note on the differences: In an RTS game you float high above the action, making one split-second strategic decision after another. You often command individual units to position them based on their heath and context. In Brütal Legend, you make strategic choices once in a while, but then you jump into the battle and slug it out in person. You can fly, but it’s mostly for quick scouting and transportation. You will spend a few seconds every once in a while popping into a menu to build troops or pick a guitar solo, but then you should be right back in the action. To play the game most effectively you need to be on the ground with your army most of the time, mixing it up with your axe, and your guitar, but most of all — using your Double Team attacks.

Double Team attacks are critical to your success in Stage Battles. Every friendly unit in your army has a move that they can only perform in conjunction with the player character. These moves are extremely varied, extremely powerful, and extremely fun to perform. Sometimes you might simply gain control of that unit’s weapon—for instance, when a Razor Girl jumps up on your shoulders—but when you do so you increase its damage significantly. Other units, like the Bride, seem to be just passive, debuffing units most of the time (the Bride slows down enemy units) but when you Double Team with her she has a devastating lighting attack. More complicated Double Teams include the Frightwig, who Ophelia can pick up and throw onto an enemy unit. The Frightwig then wraps itself around the enemy’s head and causes the victim to join Ophelia’s side in the battle. (You can even use this to commandeer the enemy’s Rock Crusher!) The Organist is another passive unit whose Double Team attack allows you to gain direct player control over an enemy unit, giving you command over whatever attacks they normally have.

There are important strategic choices to make in Stage Battles. Should I spend my fans to upgrade my stage and gain access to more powerful units, or should I spend it now on cheap infantry? Which fan geysers should I fight for and which should I concede? What is the right time to block my enemies troop production with a Rock Block solo? Would anti-infantry units be better against the current enemy army, or should I switch to anti-vehicle? But these strategic decisions only take a second, and then you should get right back in the action. You should never be up in the air or away from the battle for too long.

Some people find it hard to split up the army and give individual orders to individual troops. This is kinda true, mostly because you shouldn’t be doing it! That’s how you play an RTS game, not how you should play Brütal Legend. True, there are times where you might want to split your army, but it’s not common. I play complete Stage Battles most of the time without issuing a single Individual order. Your army is most effective when it’s together. The AI automatically groups your warriors into battle formations where the troops support each other. Many of the units buff or heal each other. When they are together they can all be enhanced with a single Battle Cry (or other buffing) solo. And when they are all together and you are in the middle of them, that is when you have the greatest number of options for Double Team attacks.

So to summarise my advice for playing Brütal Legend Stage Battles:
Get in the centre of the action!
Use Double Team attacks!
Don’t stay in the air too long!
Use Double Team attacks!!
For the most part, keep your army together!
Use Double Team attacks!!!
Don’t think of it as an RTS game!

If you have tried the Stage Battles before reading these tips, and felt overwhelmed by the controls, or frustrated with the lack of detailed troop controls, I’m hoping you will be able to take this info and go back into the fray and be much more successful. We know that the Stage Battles are tons of fun for most players — and for people who are open to new kinds of action gameplay experiences, they are in fact the core of what makes Brütal Legend a fun game experience and unlike any other. I’ll see you online!

-TimOfLegend (that’s my name on both XBL and PSN. Play against me and you’ll get an achievement!)

P.S. Here are some more tips from our Lead Designer, Erik Robson:

General Tips
*Early in the game, low-level troops are vulnerable to enemy Avatar harassment; make sure you watch over them and protect them if necessary.
*USE YOUR DOUBLE TEAMS!
*Don’t play timidly. The game is about projecting power and taking control of territory. If you try to play defensively and stay in or near your base, you’ll be at a resource disadvantage.
*If you set the beacon on a building, your dudes will attack the building until it’s destroyed, ignoring any incoming attacks.
*The right solo played at the right time can be devastating – don’t forget you have those tools at your disposal!

Ironheade Tips
*Ironheade is extremely mobile — use this to your advantage.
*Razor Girls’ Double Team is great for dealing with early-game Avatar harassment.
*Remember that you can upgrade your level 1 troops once your stage hits level 3. If you’ve spent the game massing up those small infantry, an upgrade can really pay off.

Drowning Doom Tips
*Gravediggers, while more numerous, have lower health than other basic melee troops. They may need extra support in the early game.
*Use your debuffers (Bride, Organ, and Dirgible). They’re powerful, and the Bride and Organ stack their debilitating effects.
*Bride’s Double Team is great for dealing with early-game Avatar harassment.
*Remember that you can upgrade your level 1 troops once your stage hits level 3. If you’ve spent the game massing up those small infantry, an upgrade can really pay off.

Tainted Coil Tips
*Your hierarchy units (Nuns, Warfather and Overblessers) are extremely vulnerable while alone. They’re much safer when they’re surrounded by minions, because they get a small stacking healing bonus from each nearby minion.
*Punishing Parties’ Double Team is good for dealing with early-game Avatar harassment.
*Remember your Superior and Divine troops — for example, if you build a Warfather, he can then build a Superior Nun, which in turn can produce Superior Soul Kissers and Punishing Parties. Superior and Divine squads are more powerful than the basic troops, but cost the same!

Brutal Legend creator Tim Schafer is known for his humour. The musical talent in the game are known for their metal. The game’s star, Jack Black, is known for being Jack Black. Combine all of those elements together and you have a funny game about good heavy metal with Jack Black in it, but that’s only a part of picture. It’s pretty safe to assume that Brutal Legend is entertaining, but is it entertaining to play?

To answer that question, we throw up horns and bang our heads to the assembled video game critics.

Giant Bomb
It’s pretty clear within the first few minutes of Brutal Legend that the folks at Double Fine have a deep, profound love for heavy metal. There’s a reverence here, not necessarily for the reality of heavy metal, but for the gleaming, violent, sexy, and well, brutal power fantasy that a wicked Judas Priest album cover, and the contents within it, might inspire in a 13-year-old boy. And while heavy metal has a tendency to be pretty self-serious, Brutal Legend is anything but, taking all of the demonic imagery, S&M gear, hot-rod fetishism, closeted druidic fixations, and ultra-macho barbarian warriors, and blowing it out to its logical and absurd extreme. This is, far and away, Brutal Legend’s biggest strength: its ability to be both giddily ridiculous and fist-pumpingly badass, often in the very same moment.

Wired
Based purely on Brütal Legend’s premise – a heavy metal roadie played by Jack Black is transported into a world based on the imagery of metal album covers – I expected nothing more than farcical comedy from the game. What I got was an impeccably crafted, surprisingly human tale of love and death that had me playing and playing to find out what happened next. The thing is, after a while, the story was the only reason I was still playing. While Brütal Legend is set in a cohesive, tightly written universe, the gameplay never settles down into a coherent experience. The game mixes elements of many genres, with none pulled off particularly well, and delivers an astoundingly complex design instead of a simple one that would have sufficed and better served the engrossing story.

Eurogamer
Threaded inside the main narrative – and becoming an increasingly regular occurrence as the game continues – is a surprisingly elaborate RTS: the characters you meet en route double as traditional unit types, and the open world you explore on foot or behind the wheel of the Deuce is built to pull back into a smart arena of capture spots and choke-points. It’s all rather elegant; as the game’s dual nature starts to take shape, it’s fascinating to watch how Double Fine gets the videogame equivalent of overtime out of the same small handful of elements. That said, it may come as something of an annoyance if you were expecting a few hours of soothingly simple hacking and slashing only to find yourself leading troops into pitched combat instead.

GamePro
Visually, however, Brutal Legend is pretty impressive. It doesn’t sport next-gen effects like you’d find in Uncharted 2, but the game’s personality really comes through, which means much more than I can express. From the crackling lighting on Eddie’s flying V to the gaudy amount of make-up caked onto General Lionwhyte’s face, you feel like you’re really in Brutal Legend’s inventive and oftentimes insane world. Occasionally players are bound to come across some murky textures or a few of the previously mentioned graphical glitches, but the moment they find themselves flying through a swarm of Spark Plug Bugs after blazing over a cracked canyon via an off-road ramp, they’re bound to look past these minor hiccups.

Play Magazine
Like all of Tim Schafer’s games, the heart and soul of Brütal Legend is its story… And while Brütal Legend may start out seeming decidedly straightforward for a Schafer yarn, the first kiss changes everything, but nothing will prepare you for the twists ahead. By game’s end you’ll feel like Brütal Legend is home and home will seem empty without it. You might not expect much from a story about an old-school Metal roadie transported to a parallel universe where his skills turn the tide in humanity’s struggle against its demonic oppressors (unless of course you know the Milkman) but between the writing, acting and the performances Double Fine manages to pull out of their real-time characters, it’s, well, it’s just the best there is.

Kotaku
In the end, Tim Schafer’s trademark wit, an amazing cast of characters, and an unforgiving faithfulness to the heavy metal culture that Brutal Legend celebrates helps bring together what could have wound up a disjointed mix of clashing genres. It’s a game that is worth experiencing, even if you have to call in a more strategically-minded friend to ease you through the hard bits.

I completely agree with that last guy…

Brutal Legend is the latest game from Double Fine Productions and Tim Schafer, the man behind Full Throttle, Grim Fandango and Psychonauts. Eddie Riggs is a roadie who fears that heavy metal is dying, until the Fire Beast Ormagöden transports him to a mystical alternate history where heavy metal suffers under the tyrannical rule of the evil Lord Doviculus. Eddie must free this world and its inhabitants from the demon reign, but to do so he’s going to need all his roadie skills, and he’s going to need an army.

Brutal Legend is a game that is hard to define, mixing several different gameplay styles, from open-world action-adventure to vehicular combat to real-time strategy. Can Double Fine tie together these different threads into a satisfying gaming experience, or do they braid them into a rope and hang themselves?

Loved
The Song Of Eddie Riggs: Strip away the glitz and glam, the gloom and goth, and of course, the metal, and Brutal Legend is the classic tale of a stranger in a strange land, leading a rag-tag band of rebels in an uprising against their oppressors. It’s the sort of story we’ve seen time and time again in books and movies (Army of Darkness comes to mind immediately), though this time around the strange land is far stranger, though at times comfortably familiar. Looking at it another way it could be a forum argument between fans of goth music or glam rock and fans of heavy metal come to life. It’s outrageous and over the top, while still maintaining just a bit of humanity, even if it is a more sophomoric, hilarious sort of humanity.

You Can’t Stop The Metal: More than an album cover brought to life, Brutal Legend is heavy metal given physical form. Driving your souped-up hot rod across rolling hills with giant monuments to rock jutting up from the ground; navigating jagged cliffs as waves crash against the rocks far below, in search of dragon statues; or running through the swamp as black panthers straight out of a black light poster bound about the twisted trees — it’s the sort of place heavy metal fans imagine themselves in when listening to the music. The fact that you are listening to some of the best music the genre has to offer while doing so just makes it that much sweeter.

I’m Free Roaming: While you’re not leading your troops into battle or escorting the tour bus to your next gig, you’re free to roam about the countryside in your tricked-out Deuce, taking on missions, uncovering secrets, unlocking new music and earning points to upgrade your powers and equipment at various Guardian of Metal locations scattered across the countryside. Some of my favourite moments in the game were when it was just me and my car, leaping over obstacles while the music blared. Hell, that describes some of my favourite real life moments.

We’re The Road Crew: What really makes the story of Brutal Legend work is the amazing cast of characters that Double Fine created and the voice actors behind them. You’d expect a fine performance from actors Jack Black and Tim Curry, but it’s the musical talent that steals the show. Heavy metal artists aren’t generally known for their acting chops, but for the most part they really aren’t acting in the game. They are just being themselves, and it works. From Lemmy Killmister’s mumbled comments to Ozzy Osborne’s surprisingly un-mumbled quips, their words feel at home because in a way the game is their home. Special props go out to Lita Ford, who actually had to act, and did a surprisingly good job of it.

You Gotta Fight: Whether you’re alone against the forces of darkness armed with only your axe and your guitar, or teaming up with the various members of your crew to perform special attacks, combat in Brutal Legend is smooth, fierce, and generally satisfying. Accruing the favour of the gods and spending it at the Guardian of Metal’s shop allows you to change the properties of your weapons, granting you special powers, while new moves and new vehicle weapons mean you always have a nice assortment of killing moves at your disposal. Things can get a bit hectic during the larger battles, but all in all I enjoyed killing the various people, places, and things that Brutal Legend pit me against.

Battle Of The Bands: This is where Brutal Legend is going to throw some gamers. The major battles and multiplayer of the game swap out the hack and slash gameplay for what is essentially an action real-time strategy game. You harvest resources in the form of fans, which in turn allow you to upgrade your stage, unleashing more powerful units onto the battlefield as your fan-base grows. Your opponent, be they AI-controlled or another player online, is busy doing the same thing, with the goal generally being to destroy your base before you destroy theirs. You can wade into the battle yourself, playing riffs that buff your forces or debuff the enemy, but later in the game the bad guys get a bit too powerful to spend more than a moment engaged in melee combat. Your job is to fly around the battlefield, guiding your troops as they do the job for you. It’s a quick and dirty RTS, and while I had some issues with the overall flow of the single-player game due to the switch in gameplay styles, taken on its own its quite an entertaining little mini-game.

Hated
Record Skipping: The vocal work in Brutal Legend is amazing, but that doesn’t mean I want to listen to the same three or four phrases over and over again. Several of the story missions in the game had me gritting my teeth in frustration as the characters repeated themselves over and over as I desperately tried to complete my objectives before going insane.

Re-Mission: The handful of side missions available in Brutal Legend are appreciated for the way they break up the main story and afford opportunity to build up more favour points in order to upgrade your powers, but they could have done with a bit more variety. You can only do so many ambush missions with the same exact dialogue each time before they begin to wear on you, which makes completing them all less of a good time and more of a chore.

An Odd Mix: The game starts off by teaching you the basics of guitar and axe combat. Simple. Then it lets you get used to driving and shooting. Still pretty basic. Then you are plunged into a real-time strategy game, where it doesn’t quite feel like a real-time strategy belongs. Until now, my main exposure to Brutal Legend had been funny videos starring Jack Black, so I wasn’t quite prepared for a game where the major skirmishes were in RTS form. Double Fine eases players into it as best they can, but it’s still an odd mixing of gameplay styles that don’t generally get along with each other.

Brutal Legend combines a rather eclectic mix of different gameplay styles. It’s an open-world action-adventure game, a squad-based brawler, a driving shooter, and a real-time strategy game. Diversity is its strong suit, but it could also be the game’s biggest weakness. Players who enjoy running about, killing creatures with axes might not enjoy suddenly finding themselves in charge of collecting resources and spending points on creating an army to do the work they’d rather do themselves. I really enjoyed the RTS portions of the game, but a part of me would have rather Double Fine had just thrown in a traditional boss fight rather than have me shift gears so abruptly.

In the end, Tim Schafer’s trademark wit, an amazing cast of characters, and an unforgiving faithfulness to the heavy metal culture that Brutal Legend celebrates helps bring together what could have wound up a disjointed mix of clashing genres. It’s a game that is worth experiencing, even if you have to call in a more strategically-minded friend to ease you through the hard bits.

Brutal Legend was developed by Double Fine Productions and published by Electronic Arts for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on Rocktober 13th. Retails for $US59.99/AU$109.95. A copy of the game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes. Played though the campaign mode on normal difficulty and participated in several online multiplayer matches, kicking arse in the process.

Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ.

I didn’t, which means I missed a bit of Jack Black cosplay.

Never mind the whole Kanye West/Taylor Swift imbroglio or the Lady Gaga performance blood bath, I didn’t get a chance to see Black walk the carpet as Brutal Legend hero Eddie Riggs.

MTV Multiplayer’s Russ Frushtick says Black was wearing a muscle shirt, head banger’s wig and sporting a ginormous axe. He really should have brought a legion of Headbangers with him to complete the look.

VMAs Feature Jack Black Dressed As Eddie Riggs Of ‘Brutal Legend’ [MTV Multiplayer]

For those about to justify, we salute you. Alex Charlow of EA, we’ll give you 30 seconds, go!

The ESRB’s full listing is honest and straightforward, but I can’t help but be taken back to the days of the PMRC and its incredulous, chapter-and-verse descriptions of all the hideous things bands like Megadeth and Slayer put into their lyrics, which we already knew about like back in the sixth grade, duh.

Read it for yourself. It is an unusually meaty entry. For some it’s a warning. For others, one of the greatest testimonials the game could hope to have.

Brütal Legend

Platform: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3

Rating: Mature

Content descriptors: Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Partial Nudity, Strong Language, Suggestive Themes

Rating summary: This is an action adventure/role-playing game that tells the story of Eddie Riggs, a roadie who is transported to a mythical world of heavy metal rock. Eddie is armed with a guitar and a double-headed axe, which players can use to slash and dismember enemies. Players can also perform “face-melting solos” (literally melting enemies’ faces), meet humanoid creatures dressed like dominatrixes and brandishing whips, and liberate an army of rockers from a life of oppression. Although the storyline is often irreverent and whimsical, the depictions of violence are somewhat intense: Undead humanoids are dismembered with an axe (sometimes in slow-motion); a “Steel-Quilled Blade” causes human enemies to explode into gibs that rain down; machine guns, missile launchers, and sub woofers can be used to kill druids and other fantastical creatures. Eddie can also run over dozens of enemies with his hot rod, resulting in blood effects and more heads and limbs getting chopped off. During the course of the game, characters sometimes engage in suggestive dialogue intended for comedic effect (e.g., “Maybe with all your feedback, you guys could just blow me over the gorge” and “Playtime’s over. Now let’s get back to the orgy”). Players will also encounter “Skull Rakers” clad in bondage gear and amazon-like warriors dressed in leather outfits that partially reveal buttocks and breasts. Strong profanity (e.g., “f*ck,” “sh*t,” and “d*ck”) can be heard in the dialogue.

Brütal Legend ESRB Description is Long, Totally Epic [Destructoid]

Schafer had this to say in a statement to GameDaily:

This soundtrack took years to put together as we wanted to represent every genre of Metal, and also have the perfect music for every epic moment in the game. It’s designed to be loved by Metal fans, and for those who are not, it will either convert them or make their heads explode … or both.

Emily Ridgeway, the Brütal Legend music director, chipped in that the music will “kick your f***ing teeth in.” It just won’t have any Iron Maiden.

Brutal Legend’s Entire Soundtrack Revealed [GameDaily]