Game Review: Guitar Hero Metallica

Posted by Josh Salem on May 13th, 2009

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After Guitar Hero: Aerosmith fell as a bust, I was extremely hesitant to pick and try a guitar hero title based on one of my favourite metal bands, but through my loyalty of both the game and the band, I figured I’d give it a shot, after all, Metallica would never sell out, right? (that was a joke). Guitar Hero: Metallica (GH:M) delivers everything it promised. Open for the band, play with the band, be the band. While presentation, music, graphics, and extras are all phenomenal (and all that are important to the Guitar Hero brand); I still felt a little off about GH: M, more the vibe I get from the band itself than anything else. GH:M promised us three things. A kick ass sound track, a real feel for what the band does almost nightly while on tour, and visuals that rival a live concert. In all three sections, GH:M meets expectations and does it with flair.

Visually I enjoyed GH: M not only as a video game but how closely it felt to a live concert. As I had attended a Metallica concert a couple of months ago, with the show fresh in my mind I decided to compare it to their virtual stage presence. Their signature moves were all there, stances, postures, actions and facial reactions were all accurate. In fact a couple of times it kind of weirded me out that they could nail down the motion capture so perfectly. Again however, this lead to an issue I’ve always had with Guitar Hero, that being that the stage presences during songs felt too scripted. If you were to play the same song three times in a row for example, all three times James would whip his guitar up in the exact same manner at the exact same point every time, an issue you witness less with their rival game, Rock Band. Otherwise when playing as the house band you’re in the same position as if you were playing any other Guitar Hero title, same characters and instruments present, which was expected comparing GH: M to their Aerosmith predecessor. While playing as Metallica however, up to the hair styles and facial blemishes you play and look like a much younger Metallica band… which I guess makes sense as if you were aging and greying, would you want to be immortalized in your prime or your later years? Lighting effects, virtual pyrotechnics, and all that fun stuff are included and work well with the songs they apply to, much like a planned concert yet again. Stage backgrounds almost all relate to a Metallica album or tour and as such, all these features combined provide the most realistic concert simulator to date.

This sound track is wicked. Not only do players get to enjoy a slew of Metallica songs (almost 30) from All Nightmare Long to Whiplash, but you also get some great tracks from bands that have, in one way or another, interacted with Metallica in the past. These tracks include Bob Seger’s Turn the Page, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Tuesdays Gone, Slayer’s War Ensemble, and Toxicity by System of a Down to name a few. The only con to this amazing track list of approximately 50 songs is that not everyone might find it amazing. If you’re a fan of hard rock or metal, you will adore this list, if however, you’re a fan of country, pop, or easy listening… well then a) you would hate this track list… and b) why would you pick up Guitar Hero: Metallica in the first place? As well, players can access the Death Magnetic album DLC in GH:M, saving them from swapping the disc out for Guitar Hero: World Tour. It’s true however that Death Magnetic is the only DLC that will work on GH:M, I feel this may again have to do with the scripted stage presence found in this title.

Controlling Metallica has never been easier, players can drum, play the guitar or bass, or sing their favourite tunes as one of the most influential bands in history. The guitars are a-blazing, vocal chords burning, and drums pounding and this was in fact one of the reasons I felt Metallica was somewhat rubbing in the hardships of their jobs with this title. I will admit it must be really hard being Metallica, standing on stage rocking their asses off for hours on end, I don’t necessarily want to experience that pain when playing a leisurely game at home. Some of these songs are lightning fast from start to finish and some of them are extremely long. Players have three options: a) they can pause in the middle of songs for a rock-break to rest their rock-fingers, b) players can suffer and struggle through the rock-pain, or c) they can train day and night for months on end to be able to virtually rock as long and as well as Metallica. The drums have it especially bad, as Lars showboats in the game and virtually (and smugly) laughs at how you can’t do what he does on a plastic toy, it got a little annoying that every song took 5-10 minutes to play through. At certain points I felt the urge to just turn the title off and play something fun… or rest my hands in a bowl of cold water. To add insult to injury, since my Guitar Hero drum set was defective, I was using the Rockband drum set, meaning one less pad to play making the game that much easier… but still painful. Add on the extra hard plus mode for drums (not recommended unless you have the double bass pedal bundled with pre-ordered games) and you have one hell of a time ahead of you. Guitar and bass weren’t any easier, just as fast, just as long, just as painful. It’s not so much that the songs are hard to play, but rather they’re fast, furious, and long.

So what else is there to do beside play the game? Well, I’m glad you asked. Much like Guitar Hero 1 and 2, to progress through the ‘story’ mode, instead of having to beat certain songs, players only had to accumulate a certain number of stars to progress, meaning you could skip all the songs you found boring until a later point. The real fun however comes from all the added bonuses the game provides. Aside from the standards like quick play mode, online play, multiplayer band, and battle mode, there are characters to unlock such as Lemmy (of Motorhead fame) and King Diamond (from Mercyful Fate), instruments and costumes to unlock and other colour variations and videos to ‘purchase’ from the game store. New features in the battle mode include new power ups such as ‘fade to black’, ‘trapped under ice’, and ‘ride the lighting’ (which is essentially the same as amp overload). Another extra bonus is that every song in the game is available in quick play mode from the start, a welcomed tweak to this Guitar Hero fan. Players can also go backstage to practice the more challenging songs, view behind the scene videos and pictures, and read song lyrics. You also have the option of creating your own Rockstar in the aptly named Rockstar Creator mode, leader board, Rock rank, and community stats tracking fill out the extras. Oh, I may have neglected to mention two extra cool additions to the bonus mode, Drum over mode allows players to erase the drum track to any song and, depending on which song, the accompanying drum tracks are available to go wild and sound great doing it with any track in the game. The second bonus, again, I feel is Metallica tooting their own horn, but is still kind of neat. Metallifacts, after you finish a song you unlock the Metallifacts for it in which the song will be shown and played in the background, but throughout the song little fact pop-ups appear, kind of like a DVD-style text based commentary. While the concept is neat, I’m not sure I really care that the sound I’m currently hearing is a trumpet played in reverse. I’m sure it’s something different… but I just don’t care.

Overall if you’re a fan of Metallica, you should go out and get this title for whatever system you have, if you don’t have any systems available for this title but love Metallica, you should go get an Xbox or PS3 and rock the heck out! If you can’t stand stuck up, full of themselves rock stars (which by far Metallica is allowed to be) you might want to steer clear of this one. One thing’s for certain with Guitar Hero Metallica however, it will by far increase your finger stamina to a whole new level.

Gameplay: 4.5/5

Graphics: 4.5/5

Sound: 5/5

Replay Value: 4/5

Tags: game review, guitar hero, Metallica, xbox 360

Categories: Gaming, Playstation Reviews, XBox Reviews