Brutal Legend designer Tim Schafer has dashed the dreams of many a hopeful plastic axe swinger against the heavy metal rock of reality by confirming that his upcoming game will not support guitar controllers in any way.
Guitar controllers and Tim Schafer’s heavy metal action adventure, Brutal Legend, seemed as natural a combination as the bottom of Ozzy Osbourne’s stomach and a bat, but sometimes things that work on paper don’t work in real life.
In Brutal Legend, you play as Eddie Riggs, who uses an axe, in both the literal and heavy metal sense, to fight. The literal axe cuts heads off, the guitar unleashes all sorts of special moves, and also plays a role in some kind of “casting system” that involves Eddie playing songs on his guitar. Sounds like the perfect opportunity to use a guitar controller, right? On top of that – both Brutal Legend‘s former (Activison) and present (Electronic Arts) publishers manufacture games that feature, you guessed it, fake plastic guitars.
Unfortunately, Schafer’s too sensible for his own good (and what place does sensibility in heavy metal, I ask?). Asked if he might include guitar controller support in Legend, Schafer revealed he’d been thinking about it. “I was trying to figure out how you would throw down the controller and pick up the guitar,” he recalled. Yeah, it does sound a bit cumbersome when you put it that way. Schafer then remarked that are “no plans” for guitar controller functionality in Brutal Legend.
Which I guess is for the best. Because I’m pretty sure I would’ve broken my TV swinging around my Rock Band guitar like it was a weapon.
