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Metal is dead. What started as rocking' took a wrong turn at 'glam' and sent head-banging down the path toward modern faux edgy pop music -- the kind marketed toward the 'tween' demographic. Satan must be rolling over in his grave...

But all is not lost. The man-god/game designer Tim Schafer and his legion of carpal-tunneled programmers have come to set the universe right by unleashing Brütal Legend upon the forsaken masses. Hearkening players back to a time when a face-melting guitar riff wasn't considered a figure of speech, Brütal Legend is so metal it could quite possibly make your brain hemorrhage just looking at it.

While the game doesn't provide a preorder bonus of nose candy and a bottle of Jack, it's clear that Tim Schafer's M.O. was to 'crank up the rock to 11.' And a game which starts by killing the main character, so he may be resurrected to battle upon a mountain of dragon bones, could only work using such a philosophy. In the process, Schafer has somehow managed to slap together every possibly relevant cliché and turn it into a wholly original script.

The game opens with Eddie, the best roadie in the biz, speaking of how rock has lost its magic. As he listens to his clientel perform songs about their teen angst, Eddie yearns for the days when rock was real. That is, until his daydreaming monologue gets cut short by the stage crushing his body. After dying, he awakens to find himself in an strange land. Best described as a world of Heavy Metal, it's a place where humans mine carburetors and power chords rain fire from the sky. In other words, his paradise, or at least would be if it wasn't under siege. Glam rock, and 'black tears' have torn the world asunder. While there is a resistance, it's too small and unorganized to fight back. Thankfully, Eddie, with his skills as a roadie, is in the perfect position to help… and his crush on a female member provides the incentive to do so. Assembling a stage crew and forming the band Iron Heade (the extra 'e' is there to show they're serious), the free people of Bladehenge can now join together to challenge their oppressors with the power of Metal.

Exactly how Eddie goes about his demon demolition is a bit hard to explain. Mixing together RTS, brawler, and open world genres with a dash of rhythm game thrown in for good measure, Brütal Legend tries to harness the strengths of each. A large over world provides access to both main and side quests along with hidden upgrades. Enemies encountered in the over world and side quests are primarily vanquished through brawler mechanics. Button combos chain attacks together between Eddie's axe (melee) and guitar (magic). And if the situation proves to be a particularly tough pickle, guitar riffs, played by timed button presses, can quickly tip the scales by unleashing special attacks.

In contrast, story missions handle much like an RTS. Eddie commands his troops, upgrades his stage (fortress), and tries to build Merchandise Booths to acquire fans (points) to spend on units. However, he's still part of the fight and can join any skirmish as a brawler, as well as team up with individual units.

While great on paper, the execution proved to be problematic. Not only does each genre blend together to produce awkward results, but each game-type feels rushed. The RTS matches don't provide any practical way to control troops or view status updates. The brawling portions of the game offer little depth and the over world seemingly exists for collectathons -- most of which are ultimately worthless. And since the over world heavily reuses art assets, discerning between set pieces and interactive objects can prove to be exceedingly difficult. The game isn't broken by any means, but Brütal Legend's rough mechanics stand in stark contrast to its tightly crafted narrative component.

Told through the voices of Jack Black, Ozzy, and Rob Halford among a host of other notables. The people of Bladehenge generally take themselves very seriously. Nevertheless, since Brütal Legend is theater of the absurd, hearing frantic conversations about life and death while battling David Bowie and S&M demons makes them anything but. The end result is genuinely funny dialogue with flawless punch line execution.

However, while the voice work is amazing, the same can't be said about the visuals. Not because of the thematic presentation. Its cartoony palette combined with environments sculpted to stylistically reflect their inhabitants perfectly mesh with the concept. Rather, the geometry, particle effects, and textures often leave something to be desired. The visuals aren't terrible by any means, but the game isn't drop-dead gorgeous. Which begs the question of why there are frequent framerate dips (on both 360 and PS3) during over world exploration. Although the game run smoothly in battle, the screen stuttering quickly become very irritating -- especially when taking into account the simplistic visuals.

Brütal Legend has enjoyed a marketing budget higher than any of Schafer's titles in recent memory (possibly ever), but I couldn't help shake the feeling that he developed this title for an audience of one. While he has caricatured himself before (See Day Of The Tentacle), never have any of his games provided such an insight into the director himself. The frustration of the premise feels as if it was crafted to realize a boyhood dream of resurrecting the fading genre. Best described as a blending of fairytale story arcs with gearheads and groupies, all lovingly wrapped in a demon's embrace, Brütal Legend is guaranteed to make you laugh -- doubly-so if you're a fan of the source material. And if you, like myself, are anything but a Heavy Metal aficionado, there's no need to worry. The game doesn't languish in fandom or arcane genre knowledge.

Regrettably, since the intense design focus enjoyed by the game's themes and characters isn't shared by it's gameplay, Brütal Legend's use of multiple genres makes it a jack of many trades and a master of none. At the end of the day, Brütal Legend as a game is mediocre. But as a comprehensive experience, the narrative and humor ultimately make up for it. Schafer knew the story he wanted to tell, but sadly not how to tell it.