Review: Guitar Hero: Metallica

I’ve been a huge Guitar Hero fan from the beginning.  Standing in front of the television with my black plastic SG around my body – I felt like a true rock star! (minus the groupies, hot sweaty audience and the rotund roadies).  Now times have changed. You’d have had to look in the darkest corners of your local game shop to find Harmonix’s original creation. Not any more. We’re now rocking aesthetically authentic axe’s and plunging into high definition deliciousness, but all the while still working on the perfect rock star stance. So how does Guitar Hero’s EIGHTH outing fair against the other music games on the market? Why don’t you hit that jump and take a look?

Admittedly, I am a big fan of Metallica. I have been working my way through their albums and still enjoying many songs that have never had the chance to caress my eardrums in such a way I’m left wanting more more. I was hoping that this game would not just appeal to the hardcore, but would be good for the Metallica virgins too. I wasn’t wrong.

Immediately  the player is graced with the sound of Metallica. Icon’s, logo’s, names and designs all being influenced by the band and their legacy. This really is a nice touch, it makes the game their own but not overpoweringly so. With that, I’d better strap on a controller and see what Guitar Hero: Metallica offers up.

The story is about you (your created rock star or default character). You join Metallica tribute band (‘tallica Jr) and sign up to be their support band on their forthcoming world tour. Playing venues around the world and breaking out songs that were personal favourites of the band. In my honest opinion, this is quite an original storyline for a game like this. A huge improvement on the lackluster story in World Tour. Although it might not seem too important, it really ties together, what is usually a list of songs, into somewhat of a cohesive experience.

The pacing of the game is really good. It gently breaks you into the world of Metallica, mixing their songs with something a little different. The  support band sets between the main show keep the tempo up, but stops you playing a ton of Metallica songs all at once. Something that would get very long, boring and tedious to even the most ardent ‘tallica fan.

The graphics and motion capturing are second to none. You can tell Neversoft really took their time to recreate the live experience. The atmosphere is electric with all 4 band members recreating their moves faithfully and providing sheer excitement for the player. Ulrich standing up to play the intro to Master of Puppets, Trujillo’s bass swing, Hammett’s stage presence and Hetfield’s relationship to the camera. All portrayed beautifully onto the screen.  The inclusion of the ESP custom shop really is the icing on the cake. It make’s the game so much more authentic (a lot like the Gibson partnership) and genuinely much more fun to be a part of.

The gameplay still stands strong too. Both guitar and bass functionality are unchanged since World Tour, but due to the large amount of Metallica (obviously) in the game, it has a consistent and solid feel to it. All of the songs are well crafted and nothing ever feels wrong, something that this franchise has struggled with in the past.

The use of the tap-pad now has use in my opinion, the (often) very fast solo passages and now do-able with the use of the tap-pad. Not only that, they really highlight the use of Kirk Hammett’s signature soloing prowess; the strong use of hammer-on’s and pull-off’s, the swooping scale runs and the tap solo’s are all included. A much much much better effort than World Tour. The game is just that much more fun to play.

One of the biggest attractions for me with this game was the drumming. To put it bluntly, they are immensely addictive. GH: Metallica opens up a whole new concept to video game drumming. The patterns are open and use all of the 5 pads very very well (excluding bass drum). The difficulty is very well gauged in this outing of GH, they range from simple beats to complex drumming patterns and everything in between. Each song is  enjoyable to play (something that couldn’t always be said about World Tour). My only frustration was with the bass pedal timing’s but, it seems everyone suffers from that. A new feature added to this version of the game was the “Expert Plus” mode, something that allowed you to use two bass drum pedals. Belive me, you’ll need that extra pedal.

In my eyes, World Tour was an experiment for the new developers to find their feet in this adaptation of the genre.  Sometimes a disappointment, sometimes brilliant, but I wouldn’t call it a solid game. GH: Metallica is the game that World Tour should have been. Everything is much much more refined and honed, the gameplay is now a hell of a lot better and honestly, single player career is a blast.

Although it might have the ‘tallica name slapped on it, this isn’t just a quick cash in. This is a solid game in it’s own right. It’s clear to me that every decision was well thought out and that everyone involved had a passion for the music not just the brand.

To me this shows that, not only is this game is for die hard Metallica fans, but also for fans of Guitar Hero and  guitar music in general.Though Metallica might be a metal band, anyone can enjoy it.

In fact, I may have enjoyed it a little too much.

It has it’s flaws, but Guitar Hero: Metallica is certainly a game worth buying if your a fan of music games. The fun of Guitar Hero is back, something i’m certainly happy to see.

9.0/10

Secondary Comments – By Anthony Barlow

I have come at this game from a completely different angle to Chris. I have a very brief knowledge of the band and certainly wouldn’t class myself as a fan of the ‘Heavy Metal’ genre. I too found the game to be a nice change from the Guitar Hero of old and am certainly glad it wasn’t more akin to the Areosmith game released a while back.

Even with my brief knowledge of Metallica I really enjoyed the game for what it was and it often got fist choice over Rock Band for a while ’round my way. I enjoyed what I played and thought that the career set up was original. At first, I admit, I was disappointed not to be playing as the band themselves (especially after that intro) but soon got into the swing of things and had a damn good time.

I wouldn’t say it was everyone’s cup of tea but, even if you don’t know the band that well, give it a go. You might just find yourself becoming a fan like I did.

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