Girl Gamer

Meet Eddie Riggs...

By AprilRly 2 years, 4 months ago • 1 Comment

Rocktober 13 is fast approaching, meaning the release of Tim Schafer and Jack Black’s rockalicious video game, Brutal Legend. On a very relaxed Key Club stage in Los Angeles, Tim Schafer informs us that Jack has been dedicated to his character, Eddie Riggs, by working out, is having bodily changes, angry temperaments and even steroid use. He then calls Jack to the stage who’s wearing an obvious muscle suit with stacked arms, six-pack abs and rubber spiked wrist bracelets. Kick ass.

After his slapstick entrance, “Eddie” then speaks about how his journey began with Brutal Legend saying he was in love with Schafer and his idea, then proceed to “make out with Tim’s brain.” Afterward began years of building the game allowing the two to work very closely together. Never any “tongue on tongue” though, but brought Eddie to the promise land of games, causing him to be presented to us, fully muscled up and roided out. “A lot of you think I am wearing a muscle suit and I will fucking fight you to prove I am not wearing a suit.” Eddie then jumped on the panel table to do push-ups to prove his strength, including clapping push-ups. Eddie then brings up Psychonauts saying he loves the game as much as he loves metal and how Schafer’s game take you through a journey that other developers should follow. He also talked about how Brutal Legend will be the true metal fantasy us metal lovers want so badly. It was a very apparent that the duo thoroughly enjoyed working on this project together.

They then turned it over to questions to where the crowd seemed a little hesitant to ask first. Eddie coaxed us into not being intimidated and promised he wasn’t really going to fight us. Someone spoke up asking when the gentlemen first got involved with gaming. Eddie said he was there at the beginning of video games and has own all consoles. He was also there “during the first baby video game was born from the loins of the pinball vagina.” He then could not continue the metaphor. Ironically, Eddie told us his first paid commercial was when he was 12 years old for an Activision game called Pitfall Harry.

The next question asked was how true to metal was the game? Tim remarked that the soundtrack has an impressive 108 songs that took around two years to complete. There will be a few not so great songs in game, but is really metal fans picking their favorite songs and putting them in the perfect place during the game. They didn’t just use bands biggest hits either, but more lesser known appropriate songs for the situation. For example, they used Black Sabbath’s “Symptom of the Universe,” not exactly their biggest hit, for the right moment in the game. It is 100% metal.

A great question asked was how many “cock-push ups” did Eddie do to prepare for this role. Eddie replied that he can’t fully do any cock-push ups anymore, only half of one. A comedic condolence fell across the audience as Eddie seemed saddened and embarrassed. He then remarked that, “he couldn’t even see his cock anymore unless it was erect then he could see the tip.” They also spoke about the hotness of Lita Ford, yet, never getting to meet her in person which both guys expressed deep disappointment over and Tim Curry being amazingly fun to work with in his role as Lord Doviculus and how much they loved him in “Clue.” Eddie let us know he signed his contract in “vomit and butt-blood” as well.

The final question was if Rocktober was going to be a time to relax since they game will be shipping soon. Tim seemed very excited and relieved of its release after the four years of work. Eddie, however, was not relaxed wondering where his promised “bakers-dozen” of review copies were. He then asked the audience if they had gotten their review copies to where someone replied that they had. He was stunned. So stunned he flipped the table and chairs and ran off the stage ending the panel.

All in all, we didn’t really learn any new things about Brutal Legend. The game is so close to being released that all we need now is to play it! Jack and Tim were ridiculously amazing to watch and listen to with their comedic banter throughout, leaving us entertained the whole time. With chemistry like that, it makes me even more excited to get me hands on this to see what they’ve created, and wish their work the best of luck!