Game review: Guitar Hero - Metallica

In 2008 the people at Activision released their first Guitar Hero game themed after one specific artist with Guitar Hero: Aerosmith. The game was a moderate success but the fact that it was pretty short and really easy compared to the other games hurt it. Now Activision has released the spiritual successor with the release of Guitar Hero: Metallica.

Now Metallica is one of the biggest bands in the world and with their induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame this year and their release of their latest album Death Magnetic have been thrust back into the spotlight. So it makes sense for a game to be released revolving around their music.

So how does this game fare against the other Guitar Hero games? I would say that it fairs really well. Now first off if you are not a fan of Metallica's music or their style of music then this game probably isn't for you. Not all of the songs in the game are by Metallica but the artists that make up the rest of the songs in the game are bands like Motorhead, Corrosion of Conformity, Mastodon, Judas Priest, Alice In Chains, System of a Down and Slayer. There are also two songs by Bob Seger and Queen thrown in but this is only because Metallica has covered both of those respective songs and I guess they thought it would be nice to throw in the originals.

Right off the bat I have to say that this game is hard. While Guitar Hero: Aerosmith was pretty simple and could be blown through in a day Guitar Hero: Metallica is not something you are going to blow through quickly unless you are a pretty experienced Guitar Hero player. As you may know from my previous reviews I'm not exactly a god at these games. I can play a few songs there and there on expert on guitar but I mostly stick to the hard difficulty and that will give me a tough time on some of the more difficult songs. The game does have a decent progression from the easier songs to the ones that are next to impossible but even the middle of the road ones are tougher than some of the songs from previous games in the series. When you get up to songs like Master of Puppets, Fight Fire With Fire and War Ensemble by Slayer you will be straining yourself to get through them.

The game does allow full band support as was first seen with the franchise with Guitar Hero: World Tour. So this means that you can do guitar, bass, vocals or drums. As with World Tour if you don't own their drum set you can use the Rock Band set with just fewer notes on the screen and therefore a lower score overall.

One inclusion they did with this game is the addition of a higher difficulty for the drums called Expert +. It doesn't really add any new drum notes but it increases the number of bass drum notes. So songs like Dyers Eve get a lot harder. What was added in to accommodate this was the ability to use two foot pedals. Thus making you play like Lars. The problem is a lot of people have had issues with the responsiveness of two pedals at once. Now I can only vouch for how well two pedals worked with Rock Band 2 and in that case it was not well at all. So if you don't own the Guitar Hero drum set I can't say if it will work for you at all.

In a game like this graphics aren't the most important thing. But the graphics in this game are very good. All four of the current members of the band have been fully rendered and look just like their real-life counterparts. The members of Metallica also did extensive motion capture sessions so they act just like they do on stage. This really helps bring the band to life and makes you feel like you are taking part in a Metallica show.

When you beat a song in the game you open up some extras for that song. There are lyrics sheets and videos as well as a feature called "Metallifacts." This lets you see facts about the song while watching it play. It's a nice feature but as of right now it's not something I've messed around with.

Overall this is a good entry in the Guitar Hero franchise. If you are a fan of Metallica then you should definitely pick this one up. If you are new to Guitar Hero this probably isn't the best place to start. Due to the game's high difficulty you might find yourself easily frustrated and I'd recommend going to a game like Rock Band or World Tour.

My score: 7.5/10