If you haven’t discovered it in the PSN or Xbox store yet, go download the Brutal Legend demo.

Remind me to learn how to type a ‘u’ with an umlaut over it. Actually nevermind, I’ll do it myself, right now. Not procrastinating is ‘my thing’ now. Ok, here goes: ………Brütal Legend. Sweet.

You’re right, to learn this, I used the google box in the upper right of the browser window. This constitutes “research” in 2009. Especially if you habituate adding the word wiki at the end of your search terms, ensuring that a wikipedia entry comes up as your first result.

Anyway, Brütal Legend (man, I love typing that) is about metal, but it’s not a music game; it’s a music-themed action/comedy game… and no, it’s actually not a one-trick pony. I read a blurb about it in the Official Playstation Magazine a few months ago and I’ve been half-expecting a generic game with some cutscenes with Jack Black’s voice doing his School of Rock shtick. But now the demo has arrived.

And it actually seems to play well… and it has tons of witty in-jokes, and winks and nods to metalheads from back in the day, as well as service to anyone who appreciates the self-aware and “ironic-but-they’re-not-really-ripping-on it-because-they-actually-love-it” tribute vibe that Tenacious D had going on, and was worth enduring Jack Black for. Based on the demo, it appears to offer a mix of hack-and-slash with puzzles of the block-pushing variety… add those to a fun story, and it works.

Ok, so Brütal Legend is a little like a Golden Axe clone, with jokes about metal. But it’s a good time. And it will also melt your face. Look for it to drop October 13.

I have a confession to make: I didn’t learn how to type a ‘u’ with an umlaut at all—I just copied and pasted one. Looking up the 5-keystroke code to create a special character seemed way too difficult.

Editor’s note: Ok, I just looked it up. An umlaut ‘u’ is ü or ü and I won’t remember that in five minutes. But no worries; if I need to write about Brütal Legend again, I can always google it and copy one.