I remember when... Well, not that I was born in the 70's but lots of other people remember when KISS started to become somewhat of a target of ridicule after their "licensed" array of extensive merchandise expanded to ridiculous lengths. The word "licensed" reads snide because, sometimes, merch choices push the boundary of what a band should be slapping their name on – need I draw your attention back to the GHOST dildo?

Now that I've got you thinking about adult toys, I'd like to get you thinking about metal's place in multimedia. The amalgamation that the metal and "geek" subcultures have become weren't so intertwined when both were in their infancy. Nowadays, if you spot someone wearing a World of Warcraft t-shirt, chances are, they probably just took off their BEHEMOTH hoodie. Not to mention, we saw a bonafide Heavy Metal video game in 2009's cross-platform Brutal Legend, an action game well-known for it's metallic soundtrack drawing from a plethora of metal's biggest and best bands and Jack Black having voiced the main character, with guests including Rob Halford and the late Lemmy. If metal royalty figured it was something worth selling, then, surely, game developers all over should get cracking.

Said in retrospect, of course, since IRON MAIDEN's Legacy of the Beast is probably the first "metal" video game to come out since then (no, I am not counting any of the Guitar Hero games). Since the GHOST dildo, I wasn't very surprised when I got the email about this ditty. Kind of a rhetorical "...Really?" but I digress: I must commend the team on their timing since gaming on mobile devices is huge. Huge. The person who bullied you at high school for being a gamer, 15 years ago, is probably now addicted to Candy Crush or Clash of Clans. It's no secret that the mobile platform has made gaming not only more accessible but also more popular among those who have probably never thought anything much about video games. The intent of this game was obviously to appeal to gamers, nu-gamers (I sincerely hope I didn't just coin this term because it's awful and refers to the aforementioned), fans of the band, metalheads in general, and cross-sections of any of the above.

I made this as spoiler-free as possible because, regardless of the disposition you might have towards this newfangled idea, I would implore giving it a crack – at least it can be played for free. You run around as Eddie from location to location, killing all kinds of supernatural, monstrous and otherwise deviant creatures from the IRON MAIDEN universe on the quest to piece the titular character's soul back together. The more things you kill, the stronger you get and, although the game's progression is obviously linear, being an RPG, there are character-construction choices a long the way, though hopefully your choices end in our favourite mascot becoming whole again. A mobile game that purportedly has a player count in the millions (account creation and true player count are distinctly different things, be careful please)? Again, I can't say I'm surprised. Micro-transactions? Not surprised. Ridiculous micro-transactions? Especially not surprised. That being said, upon being given the opportunity to take a look at this game, I was also granted with near-limitless premium currency and, much to my... Unsurprise, it helps. It helps a lot. Without going into my personal criticisms of micro-transactions, all I will say is do with thy wallet what thou wilt if you want to look cooler, be stronger and kill things faster. Of course, the hand-held journey wouldn't be complete without the proper soundtrack – the menus, fight scenes, exploration and even looking at the map are complimented with various MAIDEN medleys. The fact they were re-recorded was a little disappointing at first but, for the purposes of this game, they do their job.

That is, to remind you that IRON MAIDEN have just gone above and beyond KISS for creative merchandising; it just so happens to have significantly more thought put into it. Unless multimedia is redefined at some point, we probably won't see anything else like this for a while.