One of the best metal bands in the best Guitar Hero game yet.
For fans of the Guitar Hero franchise, Guitar Hero: Metallica might be the best entry we've seen yet. I was somewhat lukewarm on my reception to the other band-themed title that Neversoft put out with GH: Aerosmith, but Metallica absolutely blows that game out of the water, not only with the track listing, but the overall time and attention put into the actual presentation, and how the band seems to be infused into every aspect of the game.
Obviously having a Guitar Hero game centered on legendary band Metallica is, by itself, quite a thing. I've been a long time fan of the band, and I was pretty happy to see that Death Magnetic downloadable album last year, but obviously I wanted to see more of their older material, specifically from Ride The Lightning, Master of Puppets, and so on. Needless to say, GH: Metallica doesn't disappoint, covering a large portion of their early work, and tossing in some of the better tracks from their Load/Reload era, and I can't say that I'm disappointed in a single track that's been put into the game from the band.
Along with the Metallica tracks, there's a series of other artists included picked by the band, including big favorites like Slayer and Motorhead, and for the most part every additional track is really staying true to that hard rock/metal theme. There's even a lot of relatively smaller, yet excellent groups that made the cut here, and I'm sure genre fans are going to enjoy seeing these guys represented in the game, even if the mainstream appeal might be lacking for the casual player.
For those of you disappointed with the note charting in both Guitar Hero 3 and World Tour, I'd say that Neversoft has made big strides in their approach with Metallica, and you won't see those troublesome three note chords nearly at all, and while the game does make use of the slider function on the WT guitar model, the parts where you can tap away at the notes actually comes off as being pretty cool. Obviously all the other staples are still present, 8x multiplier, star power, and so on.
The single player career works pretty well in this too, and while it's not vastly different from it's predecessors, the way you unlock songs by earning stars instead of finishing small five songs sets allows you to get to all the game content in quick play much faster than before. Also, the venues all feel like big, large event places, as opposed to the small venue building up to the large arena formula we've seen in the other games. There is a small story here, but there's only a few cutscenes, and really, it's just there to add a little flavor to the game.
The band themselves are represented well by their in game models, and they take on that signature design that the other Guitar Hero staple characters have. There are a few unlockable special guests, including some cool outfit skins for the band members, and then of course there's a fairly robust character creation system too. There are plenty of unlockable equipment variants, and if you're planning on trying to unlock everything available it might take you some time, as the cash flow comes in kind of slow.
The game supports all the instruments from World Tour, so there's a full Guitar, Bass, Drum, and Vocal mode to explore, along with a full band mode, and online play for bands and single players alike. There's also the introduction of the Expert + mode, which allows drummers to connect a second bass pedal, adding to the overall realism the drums provide. Of course, I'm nowhere near talented enough to even try it out, but it's there for those of you that are.
Online mode seems to work well, I played a couple vs. and band rounds to test out how well the matchmaking and lag seemed to be, and I had zero issues there. Obviously the game is more fun to play with a local group, but having the online option is always nice.
Outside of the gameplay, there's a lot of video content to unlock, including quite a few live performances by Metallica from different tours, which is really cool to see. There's some making-of videos included as well, showing members of the band decked out in mo-cap gear and so on. Along with that, there's a really cool feature called Metallifacts that unlocks for various songs, where you can watch the song play out using the game engine while various boxes of information pop up filling you in on the history of the band and that particular song. These are actually pretty interesting to check out, especially if you're a fan of the band.
Even if you felt burnt by the Aerosmith branded Guitar Hero title, don't let that hold you back from giving Metallica a try. It's a far better effort, and honestly I'm having more fun with this than I did with World Tour at the moment, and while I can't say that the game will appeal to a non-Metallica fan, it's worth trying out for the improved note charting if nothing else. Online mode works great, local band works just as well, and if you really want to feel like a Guitar Hero, just wait till you get done jamming out to songs like For Whom the Bell Tolls, Battery, and Nothing Else Matters.
