I was a huge fan of Metallica growing up. The “Black” album is where I became slightly less of a fan. Once Load came out, I pretty much gave up on the guys. From about 1994 through 2008, I never really thought much about the band. I still listened to the old stuff though. When Death Magnetic was initially released, I skipped over it but heard a few songs online and decided to purchase it. The album is amazing compared to anything they have done since the early 1990s and the album was enough to get me interested in the band again. It’s still hard to really picture Metallica without Cliff Burton or Jason Newsted though. The “Metal Up Your Ass” days are gone, but this game is a great way to relive some of it.
I recently decided to pick up Guitar Hero: Metallica for the PS3 and didn’t expect a lot. I figured it would be a cookie cutter Guitar Hero experience, but I was interested in playing the old Metallica songs (pre-Black days), so I dropped $60 on the title. Here’s what I thought about the game:
The Good
- This game is hard as hell even on Medium. I typically play Guitar Hero games on Hard, but had to drop back to Medium for some songs. They even have an Expert Plus mode, which is something I’ll never touch. There’s no breezing through this one, unless you want numb fingers like I ended up with.
- The character models actually looked pretty good. The Guitar Hero series is known for awful character models, so this was a pleasant surprise.
- Multiplayer friendly.
- 28 Metallica tracks (mostly great ones).
- 20 tracks from other artists.
- You can now move on to the next venue based on how many stars you have earned. This is great paricularly if you want to get quick access to the better songs.
- Lyrics for every song.
- Metallifacts: a cool offering where random information about a song is displayed.
The Bad
- I rarely talk about price in reviews, but I feel the title was slightly over-priced. If they would allow you to add DLC songs to the game, I would have felt a little better about it. While the playlist was exciting and included some awesome songs, I felt some of the best Metallica tunes were not on the game.
- No ‘And Justice For All’???
- No video interviews like in GH:A. I felt like the video interviews used in Guitar Hero: Aerosmith made that game more authentic (and was one of the best aspects of the title). Metallica is a band with a very interesting past. Video interviews would have made the game a more definitive Metallica experience. The fictional story (where you are an opening act for Metallica) associated with the game lessened my opinion of the title.
Had this game been cheaper, or included video interviews between accomplishments and some DLC (or a larger library of songs), this might have been the greates Guitar Hero offering ever. I still think the game was really good, but was not the definitive experience I would have liked. Perhaps when they release Guitar Hero: Van Halen, we’ll see something closer to perfection. Guitar Hero: Metallica was a better offering than GH:A was, but I still felt like the game was lacking.
My Score: 8.5/10
Other Game Reviews:
Test Freaks (360 version) 8.8/10
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