Guitar Hero: Metallica (Sony Playstation 3, 2009)

Anyone who has ever played any Guitar Hero title for an extended period of time will invariably come across a song that completely owns them.

I'm not talking about a Pat Benatar number, or something from the Killers or Nirvana. They're easy. No, the song that will have you staring in fear at a wall of notes while your rock meter goes into the red faster than ACC will almost certainly be metal, and extremely heavy at that. The reason you never got past hard on Guitar Hero III was because of Slayer, not Santana.

Overjoyed as we were with the news last year that Metallica would not only contribute a bunch of their songs for a band-exclusive Guitar Hero title, we were far more interested to see just how developers Neversoft would deal with the difficulty level. World Tour and Aerosmith were noticeably easier than Guitar Hero III, the former going as far as to require much more accurate tracking for hammer-ons and pull-offs, the latter - well, Aerosmith could be described in a lot of ways, but "brutally hard" would not be one of them.

Before we get to what it's like to play, it's worth noting just how inclusive this title is when it comes to Metallica lore. The band members were involved in every step of the development, with James Hetfield personally laying down the basic idea for the Career Mode storyline. This is based on a group of fans who followed Metallica around on tour in the early 1990's. It's important to realise that career progression is not done in chorological order like Aerosmith - Metallica vetoed that suggestion, and it's just as well. Imagine starting your career mode off with Motorbreath, or Pulling Teeth; you'd need carpal tunnel surgery before the second set.

Speaking of which, you'll no longer have to play gigs to progress, Metallica harks back to the original Guitar Hero set lists style, each requiring you to not only pass songs, but achieve a certain number of stars to progress. There's also no need to perform endless early songs to get to the later stuff, as in Quickplay mode, all set list songs are unlocked by default.

We've compiled a list of all the current known songs in this release on page two of this article. There's a good selection of not only Metallica classics, but songs from artists that have inspired Metallica, and those they've either performed with, or produced covers of. Some of the more notable include Bob Seger ("Turn the Page" was covered by Metallica on their 1998 Garage Inc. album), Lynyrd Skynyrd (the first album James Hetfield bought was from Lynyrd Skynyrd, paid for with his lawnmower money) and Motorhead. Motorhead is a recurring theme in Guitar Hero: Metallica, as not only is the Motorhead anthem "The Ace of Spaces" included, frontman, bassist and all-round legend Lemmy features as a playable character.

Where Aerosmith dabbled in video featurettes and location-specific gigs to immerse the player, Guitar Hero: Metallica goes way further. Not only will you have access to a comprehensive extras submenu that features unlockable venues, songs, commentary, videos and behind-the-scenes footage, you can also replay completed songs with trivia pop-ups that give information about each track. With guest artist songs, you can learn how each band is tied to Metallica, along with lyrics and history facts.

Themed Battle Modes will make an appearance too. We didn't get to sample these, but we've been reliably informed you'll be able to "fade to black" your opponents note track.

I brought this item to demo before launch here in Australia and I'd have to say it was well worth the extra cost.
It has a great selection of Metallica Music ranging from their early (better) music and the more recent songs as well. It also has a great range off back up bands such as System of a Down, Slayer, Queen and Kyuss.
It also has a neat little feature that gives players access to extra features for each song such as lyrics and song details, some even have a neat little feature called Metallifacts. This plays through the song while giving little facts related to the song and artist.

I think all Guitar Hero Fans will love this next instalment of the Guitar Hero franchise. Definitely a better instalment than Aerosmith and should generate a lot of sales to the many fan Metallica have.
Now all we have to do is wait for Guitar Hero: Greatest Hits!

Guitar Hero Metallica is due out on the 27th May 2009 on Xbox 360, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii.
A game and guitar package is also available and comes with a limited edition Metallica Faceplate.

Xbox 360 – Game and Guitar RRP $169.95 Game Only – RRP $89.95
PS2 – Game and Guitar RRP $149.95 Game Only – RRP $59.95
PS3 – Game and Guitar RRP $169.95 Game Only – RRP $89.95
Wii – Game and Guitar RRP $159.95 Game Only – RRP $89.95

COMPLETE TRACKLIST


Metallica Songs

All Nightmare Long
Battery
Creeping Death
Disposable Heroes
Dyers Eve
Enter Sandman
Fade To Black
Fight Fire With Fire
For Whom The Bell Tolls
Frantic
Fuel
Hit The Lights
King Nothing
Master of Puppets
Mercyful Fate (Medley)
No Leaf Clover
Nothing Else Matters
One
Orion
Sad But True
Seek And Destroy
The Memory Remains
The Shortest Straw
The Thing That Should Not Be
The Unforgiven
Welcome Home (Sanitarium)
Wherever I May Roam
Whiplash

Other Artists

Alice In Chains - No Excuses
Bob Seger - Turn The Page
Corrosion of Conformity - Albatross
Diamond Head - Am I Evil?
Foo Fighters - Stacked Actors
Judas Priest - Hell Bent For Leather
Kyuss - Demon Cleaner
Lynyrd Skynyrd - Tuesdays Gone
Machine Head - Beautiful Mourning
Mastodon - Blood And Thunder
Mercyful Fate - Evil
Michael Schenker Group - Armed and Ready
Motorhead - Ace of Spades
Queen - Stone Cold Crazy
Samhain - Mother of Mercy
Slayer - War Ensemble
Social Distortion - Mommy's Little Monster
Suicidal Tendencies - War Inside My Head
System of a Down - Toxicity
The Sword - Black River
Thin Lizzy - The Boys Are Back in Town

The game is based on Guitar Hero World Tour, with support for lead and bass guitar, drums, and vocals. The game has many of the same features from World Tour, including single-player and band Career modes, online competitive modes, and the ability to create and share songs through "GHTunes". In addition to the normal difficulty levels presented in Guitar Hero World Tour, Guitar Hero: Metallica provides an "Expert+" difficulty for drums that requires the use of a second bass drum pedal to match the drumming style of Metallica's Lars Ulrich. The game features 28 master recordings spanning Metallica's career and an additional 21 songs selected by members of Metallica. The band performed extensive motion capture for the game for their in-game avatars and performances. The game includes several extras including behind-the-scenes videos of the motion capture sessions, tour and concert videos of the band, and Pop-Up Video-like facts for many of the songs on the game disc. (Wikipedia)

Guitar Hero: Metallica is the best entry in the revered series to date, and in all honesty the most fun I've ever had with a music/rhythm game. This is not just because of the sound track mind you (which defines epic) because Never soft went the extra mile and gave the World Tour engine a good tuning; From the 360 degree stage camera work,the spot on motion capture to the excellent double bass pedal functionality and improved presentation. This game will keep just about everyone rocking' into the night and beyond. Fans of the band will love all of the unlock able videos and extras. Highly...HIGHLY recommended

I wanted to write this review after i played all the game...... I CAN NOT WAIT, i am half way trough it, and right at the start you can feel this is a great game for the Metallica fans and guitar hero players. This is the greatest combination made. For one the song selection its excelent, including most of the band all time greatest songs, you can play them all in quickplay with out having to pass the career mode, but this last mode is great also, the additional band songs are nice, and if you dont want to, yo dont have to play them in order to continue the career, just have to get good scores on the metallica ones. I was waiting for this game price to come down a bit, ended paying a total of 27.00 on ebay, but really, had i known it was this great i would have got it at 60.00 hands down. (By the way, i am a Metallica fan, not a metal extremist... i had GHWT for about 3 months before, so just begining to play this sort of game, and never had a real instrument in my hands)