Fairytale Fights is a bit misleading.

My first meeting at E3 took place with Playlogic, creators of Obscure and and Age of Pirates (both of which I've never played). I had planned to see Obscure: The Aftermath, but instead was ushered in to a room where I was greeted with Fairtale Fights, a "hack and slash platform adventure."

The game, played from the perspective of one of four heroines from well-known fairy tales (we previewed little red riding hood and snow white), takes place in a world in which you (as the character) have lost your fame and want it back, real bad. Bad enough to hurt someone. Bad enough to kill.

I'm not quite sure how to describe this game other than by calling it a side-scrolling, gory rendition of what fairy tales would be like if they existed in a world in which people split in half and/or their heads rolled off at the flick of a wrist.

We were given a demonstration of the first level, in which you fight loggers who are upset with you for stealing their gold or something equally as magically tragic. The loggers, all equipped with logging axes and logging fists, pummel the ever-loving crap out of you until you take an axe to their face. This is where the 'fun' begins -- for you see, when you finish off a character, a small split screen appears, and in this screen the enemy is splayed in two depending on which way you swing the axe.

They call this 'salami violence' (alright) and describe it as having "control over how and when to slice and dice [your] enemies." In other words, if you swing the axe diagonally your enemy will slide off of his body in a diagonal fashion. The 'volumetric liquid system,' another Playlogic innovation, is described as "allowing blood and other liquids to seamlessly blend together." Our demonstrator showed us the detailed system by having red riding hood slide around in a pool of blood as if she were wearing skates.

It's an incredibly violent game, and there's nothing wrong with that, though it doesn't seem to really make any sense. I was kind of hoping to be able to play as the Big Bad Wolf and maul Grandma or the Easter Bunny.

We saw a few different levels, ranging from the logging forest to a candy castle, in which little children followed you around licking the walls until they grew fat and ended up being chopped to pieces in some sort of whirring dirvish. Fabulous.

There's an online or offline co-op mode, in which you can aide or hinder your friends. This seemed like the most promising part of the game.

But, for a game coming out on the 360 and the PS3, it looks a little dinky. Before blood started pouring out of the enemies, I mistook it for a game meant for a younger audience. It seems to be stuck between being adult-anger vs. cartoon-animation. Not sure how I feel about that.

Also, why didn't I know about burlesque video game show during E3?! Why didn't I know? ... Why?