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Neversoft’s latest Guitar Hero game rocks in more ways than one. Guitar Hero: Metallica, a full band Guitar Hero based obviously on Metallica and bands chosen by the group, is an extremely well designed game. Neversoft has taken the best elements of Guitar Hero: Aerosmith and taken it to the next level with Metallica – there’s a ton of fan service here. Further, the game addresses some of the gameplay kinks of GH: World Tour. Guitar Hero: Metallica is the best playing Guitar Hero yet and if you’re a fan of the band: the best Guitar Hero yet.
In a game with a band in its title, there are two vital aspects: the track list and how well the game ties back to the band. Guitar Hero: Metallica more than delivers on the first point by offering nearly 50 songs, including nearly 30 Metallica songs than span the band’s entire career. Songs from the band include “Enter Sandman,” “Fade to Black,” “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” “Master of Puppets,” “Nothing Else Matters,” “One,” Sad But True,” “Seek and Destroy,” and “The Unforgiven.” Other songs, which were chosen by Metallica, include Alice in Chains’ “No Excuses,” Foo Fighters’ “Stacked Actors,” Judas Priest’s “Hell Bent for Leather,” Motorhead’s “Ace of Spades,” Queen’s “Stone Cold Crazy,” and Slayer’s “War Ensemble.” For fans of metal and Metallica, it’s a difficult set list to beat.
On the second point, the band tie-in, the game also delivers. Members of the band have been painstakingly recreated in the game and look great. Metallica also recorded several motion capture sessions at Neversoft’s studios that allow the game to accurately show you what Metallica look like when they’re playing. The somewhat robotic animations from World Tour, especially from the drummer, have been replaced by guys rocking out. The attention to detail for each band member from looks to movement is quite impressive.
The game also includes a ton of Metallica content. There are song lyrics, photo galleries, videos from intimate shows, and even behind-the-scenes footage from the band’s recent motion capture sessions. The game also includes Metallifacts. In this mode, you’ll watch the game play certain songs (sort of like a jukebox) but with VH1-style pop-ups showing up with rather interesting facts. Hardcore fans of the band will love the feature.
Guitar Hero: Metallica’s addresses a key criticism by having every song unlocked in the game’s quickplay mode. It also addresses a campaign mode criticism since you each tier will require a total number of songs before you move on. If you need ten stars, you can five-star two songs, four-star three songs, ect. This gives you a ton more flexibility as you move through the campaign although you’ll want to go back to unlock some of the game’s unlockables. It also removes some of the frustration with World Tour since it was quite possible for a single song to block your progress.
The other two big gameplay additions are the inclusion of an Expert+ difficulty mode and Drum Over mode. When playing drums, the Expert+ difficulty mode means that you’ll be required to use a second bass pedal, making the experience more authentic since you’ll actually be able to play all the bass notes. It’s a good way of adding replayability for hardcore fans. In Drum Over mode, you’re able to turn off the game’s drum note charts and play whatever you want, which is a nice touch, especially since the drum sounds match the song that you’re currently palying.
The game also includes other gameplay tweaks. The note charting has been improved from World Tour’s to more closely resemble the actual songs though the metal songs in the game translate very well to Guitar Hero thanks to epic solos, powerful riffs, and great drumming. The difficulty curve is gentler, too, giving you a more progressively difficult game instead of suddenly ramping up the difficulty level. The UI has seen some tweaks too. For example, the purple bass lines are now easier to see. Neversoft also moved the success bar that shows how well each instrument is doing next to that instrument’s note highway instead of combining them all below the band success meter. It’s a subtle tweak but one that makes the game better since you don’t have to move your eyes away from your notes to see how well you’re doing.
Perhaps the biggest area of improvement is the way the game treats DLC. Only the Death Magnetic DLC from Guitar Hero: World Tour can be accessed here (and even then only on the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions), which is a bit disappointing since all of Rock Band’s DLC is cross-compatible. Hopefully this is something Neversoft will address in the next major Guitar Hero release. The Wii version doesn’t support any of the Death Magnetic DLC but does include three songs: "Broken Beat & Scarred," "Cyanide" and "My Apocalypse" from the album on the disc.
There isn’t much here in terms of console differences when comparing the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of the game. The Wii version obviously doesn’t look quite as good as the new-gen consoles but looks comparable to other Guitar Hero games on the console. The unlockable images and videos also don’t seem quite as sharp as they do on other versions due to the lack of HD display but these are relatively minor details.
With Guitar Hero: Metallica, it looks like Neversoft was able to balance the interests of fans of the band and fans of the franchise. There is a ton of fan service—videos, images, realistic models and animation, and trivia—in the game for fans of Metallica. There are also some appreciated structural changes (like the fully song-unlocked quickplay and career progression). The core gameplay has also been improved thanks to a gentler difficulty curve, more accurate note charting, and UI improvements. As I mentioned above, Guitar Hero: Metallica is the best Guitar Hero yet if you’re a fan of the band and arguably the best playing game in the franchise even if you’re not a fan of the band. -- Jose Liz, PGNx Media
---- Mar 29, 2009
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