Video games can be metal. I’m not talking put-on-big-hair-and-fight-demons-while-the-guitarist-shreds metal, but dark, creepy, rich, brutal, wading-through-blood-while-trying-to-hold-onto-your-soul metal. The sort of experience that’s intense and horrifying and makes you see, hear, and feel the world as a dangerous, wicked thing that wants nothing more than to consume your being. Sure, there’s plenty of demon fighting too, but I’m talking more about the general theme of the hardcore metal genres. Here are the seven most harsh, most dark, and in many cases most insanely awesome metal video games ever made.

And if you’re interested in big-hair-and-fight-demons metal, check out this older list. It has two titles that overlap, and then stays away from the creepy, crushing darkness of “truly” metal games in favor of huge swords and guitar solos. Because there’s nothing wrong with that if you like keeping your soul un-crushed.

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Congrats to the winners of our Brutal Legend contest! The following grand prize winner will receive the 17″ figurine pictured above:

• meat mincing machine: “Put it in my pee hole and swing my dick around helicopter style in a crowded Bed Bath & Beyond, forever ruining all the 2 for $15 discount shower curtains.”

And the following two runners-up will each receive a t-shirt:

• Dave B: “I’d chop the head off of the voice in my head.”
• Sweeney: “I’d bring it to the upcoming GWAR show and present it to Oderus. Then I’d probably get jizzed on.”

Congrats!

We’re giving away free shit! Woo! Today’s grand prize is a 17″ tall desktop figurine of Jack Black’s character from Brutal Legend, from a limited run of only 1,000. Two runners-up will receive one of the two Brutal Legend t-shirts shown above. All you have to do to win is tell us in the comments what you’d do if you had the axe the figurine is holding. MetalInjection and MetalInsider are also running the same contest, so head over to those sites for more chances to win.

I haven’t gotten to write a review of Brutal Legend yet because, well, I just haven’t had time to play all the way through the game, and it seems like writing a review of half a game or whatever isn’t fair. But I’ve enjoyed what I’ve played so far.

And it seems like the game owes a debt to Metalocalypse. Besides some similarities in general tone, style of humor, and a love of violence, there’s the fact that Legend takes place in a magical, faraway land where everything is related to metal and everything looks more or less like it belongs in Mordhaus. Obviously Metalocalypse already owes a debt to metal imagery as old as Sabbath itself, but… there’s definitely a connection between Dethklok and Brutal Legend.

So kudos to the fan who made the below video. At some point it might get yanked for copyright infringement, so enjoy it while you can… I have to say, it seems pretty impressive for something fan-made. And wouldn’t be awesome if there really WAS a Dethklok/Eddie Riggs crossover?

Major props to Christopher Silverio for sending this in… thanks, dude!

-AR

Lots of you have been emailing us about the new Jack Black-led video game Brutal Legend. Unless you’ve been living in a cave like the MetalSucks Mansion the past couple of weeks, the game’s release has been pretty difficult to ignore because there are ads frickin EVERYWHERE for that shit (except MetalSucks, AHEM EA!). Personally I have zero interest in this game because the last gaming system I bought was the SNES, but presumably many of you rock your XBOX 360s and Playstation 3s as hard as you rock your Internet porn every night. So, here’s Jack Black in a “viral” video spot plugging the game, including some footage from the game itself. I guess the game comes out like pretty soon or something.

-VN

MY FELLOW NERDY GAMERS: Brutal Legend, the heavily anticipated metal-themed video game starring Jack Black, has a demo that is now available for download on Xbox Live for Gold Members. Being a Gold Member myself, I fully intend to get right and play the living shit outta that demo as soon as I’m done writing sarcastic blogs about metal for the day.

Alas, no word on whether or not the demo is going to be made available to PS3 users. But since I don’t have a PS3, I’m just gonna give a Nelson-esque “HA HA!” to those poor bastards and move on with my life.

Brutal Legend hits stores October 13. Everything I’ve heard thus far leads me to believe it’s gonna be a lot of fun.

-AR

A lot of you have e-mailed us over the past few weeks to express excitement for the October release of the metal-themed video game Brutal Legend (trailer above), which stars the voice of Jack Black as as “a heavy metal roadie who is transported to a mythical ancient world where he is called upon to fight evil.” Or something.

As far as I can tell, the excitement for the game comes from a) Black’s participation and b) the fact that there’s going to be a metal game that isn’t a rhythm game (e.g., Guitar Hero).

Unfortunately, Variety reports that a lawsuit might hold up the release of the game:

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