Guitar Hero: Metallica - Review
Added March 31st, 2009 by Kenneth Rathburn
For the past forty years one particular genre of music has always raised the stakes-- heavy metal. With a combination of strong guitar work, rumbling bass grooves, thunderous drumming and soaring vocals, heavy metal has pushed its way into territory that other genres won’t. Amidst the countless acts out there, one band has stood above the rest, becoming the most recognizable metal group to this day. With the fame they’ve achieved and the status of two gaming franchises attempting to replicate playing in a band, the two have come together in this touted spin off.
Guitar Hero: Metallica is the second game in the Guitar Hero franchise to focus on a single band. However, unlike the Aerosmith outing from last year, this title brings the full band experience a la Guitar Hero: World Tour with a bigger band. As a result, those who’ve played prior games in the series should know exactly what they’re getting in this release. With Metallica being the theme of the entire package and nearly fifty tough, hard-hitting tracks to play on every instrument, what you hear is what you get.
The game’s Career mode unfolds in a standard fashion. You’ll begin by playing two of Metallica’s songs and then work your way through the other tracks. Interestingly enough, you’ll have all the songs available in Career well before you’ve even played half of the total set list. While there’s technically a story to the game, it only shows up during the brief, comic book-like cutscenes a few times. Essentially, you play as a band inspired by Metallica and endure a few struggles to play with them. Needless to say, it’s nothing to write home about.
Gameplay-wise there’s nothing new to be found between this game and World Tour. That said, since the game is centered on a proficient metal band, the game isn’t as much of a pushover. Similar to Legends of Rock, Guitar Hero: Metallica once again amps up the difficulty with plenty of challenging songs to shred through. If you’re a series veteran, then beating this game won’t be too demanding. However, if you’re a more casual player who isn’t as experienced, you’d better prepare for some crazy note charts. Another way the level of challenge has been bumped up is with the added Expert + difficulty for drums. For songs with this option, double bass notes have been incorporated into the note charts along with a few pad notes added over the Expert difficulty. In other words, if Expert drums didn’t challenge you before, they’re guaranteed to now.
Despite the abundance of taxing songs, the game is quite fun and entertaining. While some games have an issue with being challenging yet fun, Guitar Hero: Metallica manages to avoid this inconvenience for almost all of its songs. Neversoft did well to make sure the game was engaging, and as a result it’s very possible to enjoy this game even more than World Tour if the soundtrack is to your liking. Even though there are a few songs that are simply absurd in their difficulty, they ultimately do little to detract from the experience with plenty of other great tracks waiting to be mastered. In fact, many of the songs are so enjoyable that multiple playthroughs of some are inevitable. A few times I went back to play a couple songs a second or third time in a row simply because they were so engaging.
Another reason the game is so pleasurable is the presentation, especially in regards to the soundtrack. There are a total of forty-nine songs in the game, twenty-eight from Metallica and twenty-one from various guest acts. Almost every Metallica song you’d want in a Guitar Hero game is present, with “Master of Puppets”, “Where I May Roam”, “Seek and Destroy”, “Fight Fire with Fire” and “Disposable Heroes” being just some of the standouts. As for the other bands, Judas Priest’s “Hell Bent For Leather”, Thin Lizzy’s “The Boys Are Back In Town”, Slayer’s “War Ensemble” and plenty more are featured. It’s all a very superb selection. While there might be one or two songs that a few people may question about being omitted, just about every essential song is included on disc. As an added bonus, if you have the Death Magnetic album installed to your hard drive from Guitar Hero 3, the files will carry over to this game, bringing the set list total to fifty-nine.
You can customize and create your own character...
There’s also more to do with the songs than just play them. Each song has a selection of Song Extras which include letting you look at the lyrics on-screen, watch a video (usually live) of certain songs and providing Metallifacts. Metallifacts provide information to you on-screen about whatever song is being played (as performed by the in-game NPCs), which are interesting tidbits to read while listening to the song. Not every song has Metallifacts, but for those that do, they’re bound to catch your interest.
As for the visuals, they’re not much of a step above World Tour, but a few little touches help to sell the experience. Each of the Metallica band members have been motion captured and look really sharp, especially in comparison to the members found in the Aerosmith title. Thanks to this, the animations look very smooth and some of the member’s on-stage movements have been captured in-game as well (such as bassist Robert Trujillo doing his “windmill spin” during “Seek and Destroy”). Also impressive are the locations you’ll be playing at, some of which are based directly off of certain albums by the band. While you’ll mostly look at scrolling notes, it’s tough not to glance away at some of the impressive set pieces.
The problem with the visuals is that they use the same engine from World Tour, which is to say it isn’t terribly detailed outside of the band members. And though the Metallica members might look great, they only show up when you play songs by them (unless in multiplayer). The characters outside of them, on the other hand, are as unremarkable as always. But when you’re seeing the world’s biggest metal band performing on an impressive Master of Puppets themed stage, it’s tough to find much to complain about.
There are a couple peculiar design choices in the game, not all of which are good. For instance, while you do unlock songs to play in the Career mode, every single song is available in Quick Play regardless of how much progress you’ve made. This gives less incentive to even bother with the Career mode, but if you’re just picking up the game and want to jump right in and play “Master of Puppets” or “Disposable Heroes” from the get-go, you’re in luck. Another part to note is that while the Death Magnetic tracks work with this game, nothing else will, whether from Legends of Rock or World Tour. This means you’ll still have to swap out discs to play songs from other series entries. One more thing to note is that no instruments have been made available for the game. While you can pick up a second bass pedal at GameStop for reserving the game, there’s not even a Hammett/Hetfield guitar, which may disappoint bigger Metallica fans since the Aerosmith outing at least had a bundle.
At the end of the day, Guitar Hero: Metallica is essentially what it sounds like: a Guitar Hero game for Metallica fans; by the fans, for the fans in the purest sense. The set list is excellent, especially if you’re a metal fan and most of the songs are very pleasing to play. In addition, playing as any member of the band in the locales is bound to bring fans into the experience even further. Unfortunately, some odd design choices are ultimately what keep this game from feeling like a complete package. This is a great game, given you’re a fan of the band or genre. On the other hand, if Metallica or metal just don’t cater to your tastes, then you’ll want to look elsewhere.
