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Metallica and Guitar Hero fans rejoice: Guitar Hero: Metallica has landed for PlayStation 3. Like Guitar Hero: Aerosmith before it, Guitar Hero: Metallica will focus on the career and songs of Metallica.
With 28 Metallica songs and 21 other songs that influenced the band, fans will love playing guitars, drums, and singing vocals alongside Kirk Hammett, Lars Ulrich, James Hetfield, and Robert Trujillo.
The band looks incredibly life-like thanks to motion capture technology. View larger. | 
In Expert Plus mode, you'll play double bass pedals like Lars Ulrich. View larger. |
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Play gigs in famous real-life venues like The Forum. View larger. | 
Rock out to your favorite Metallica tracks. View larger. |
Follow the Career of Metallica and Play as Your Own Upstart
Guitar Hero: Metallica is similar to Guitar Hero World Tour in that you play a full suite of instruments.
When the game starts, you're the new band on the block with aspirations of opening for Metallica.
The game goes back and forth between performances by Metallica and performances of songs that influenced Metallica by your band.
The band was motion captured so you'll recognize their unique motions on screen and style of playing.
As you progress in the game, you'll start to unlock bonus features such as videos of old Metallica performances, backstage photos, and "Metallifacts," which enables different trivia to show up while a song is playing, similar to VH1's Pop-Up Video.
Metallica Recordings from Original Masters and More Via Download
Guitar Hero: Metallica features 49 songs in total, 28 Metallica songs, and 21 songs that are favorites of the band and have influenced them.
The Metallica songs are sourced from original masters so you'll have the best audio quality available. You'll also be able play downloadable content from their latest album, Death Magnetic.
Game Difficulty Goes from One All The Way Up to Eleven
Metallica exhibit technical prowess while performing, and this game goes from Beginner all the way to Expert Plus difficulty.
Hardcore gamers will not be disappointed. You'll have to play guitars, drums, and sing, and in the "Expert Plus" difficulty, you'll have to plug in a second bass pedal for double bass pedal drum work.
Real-Life Venues
As you go on tour, you'll be playing venues small and large, and you might recognize some that you've been to.
Famous venues that played a part in Metallica's career such as The Stone and the Hammersmith Odeon are included in the game and have been duplicated with great detail.
Grab Your Friends and Play Together
Multiplayer is part of what made Guitar Hero such a hit and it is no different here.
Gather your friends and family, and jam Metallica tunes together. The game also features Metallica-specific power ups for competitive multiplayer.
For example, "Fade to Black" will black out your opponent's notes, and "Trapped Under Ice" will freeze their whammy bar.
Create Your Own Music
Those familiar with Guitar Hero World Tour will welcome back the Music Studio, where you can create new music and then upload and share them through the GHTunes service.
The Music Studio in Guitar Hero: Metallica gives you Metallica specific tones such as Hetfields' ESP Truckster guitar, as well as Metallica drum sounds. Songs made in Metallica and World Tour are compatible with each other through the GHTunes service.
Guitar Hero: Metallica Track List
| - All Nightmare Long
- Battery
- Creeping Death
- Disposable Heroes
- Dyers Eve
- Enter Sandman
- Fade To Black
| - Fight Fire With Fire
- For Whom The Bell Tolls
- Frantic
- Fuel
- Hit The Lights
- King Nothing
- Master of Puppets
| - Mercyful Fate (Medley)
- No Leaf Clover
- Nothing Else Matters
- One
- Orion
- Sad But True
- Seek And Destroy
| - The Memory Remains
- The Shortest Straw
- The Thing That Should Not Be
- The Unforgiven
- Welcome Home (Sanitarium)
- Wherever I May Roam
- Whiplash
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 Best Guitar Hero Yet |
| Review Date: April 16, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Leicester Dedlock, Ames, IA United States |
To put it simply, this game rocks. Since I picked it up the other day, I've played it almost non-stop and finished most songs on every instrument. I have work to do. I don't need another addiction. :)
Let's break things down:
Gameplay:
Gameplay is pretty much unchanged from World Tour except you can now do double bass drumming and the Career mode progression has changed quite a bit. As in other Guitar Hero games, when you beat a song you get a rating of up to 5 stars depending upon your performance. Like Rock Band and unlike previous Guitar Hero games, it is possible to get less than 3 stars, but as in Rock Band it is unlikely. To progress from one tier to the next you simply have to get a total number of stars on previous songs. This system makes it very easy to "beat" the game since the star requirements are very low and the ratings from all previous tiers, not just the current one, count. So if you want to progress to tier 7 and are having trouble with tier 6 songs, you can just go back and finish whatever tier 2 or tier 3 songs you didn't finish. Since the star rating requirements are so low, I managed to "beat" the game only completing about 40% of the songs (though I went back to finish the others). Another thing that makes the game easy to beat is the fact that the only required songs are very easy. You have to beat the first two songs, "For Whom the Bell Tolls" and "The Unforgiven", and you have to beat the last song, "The Thing That Should Not Be". They're three of the easiest songs in the game, and since you only need to beat 40% or so of the songs to beat the game, you can just do the easiest 40%. So, beating the game is no real challenge, although beating every song is.
Also, there are no longer setlists, so for each tier, you can beat the songs in any order and even skip some of them.
Graphics/cutscenes:
Graphically, it's the best Guitar Hero game yet, although it's still inferior to the versions available on other systems. You'll see a lot fewer awkward animation moments than in previous Guitar Hero games. Remember the stiff drummer (a robot, maybe?) or the hideously ugly singer from GHIII? They're fortunately gone.
Some have complained about the storyline "cutscenes" being too cartoony, but I'd say it's less so than other Guitar Hero games. Still, the Ice Cave (the last venue) felt kind of out-of-place. The "storyline" definitely belongs in quotes as there is not much of a story, nothing worth mentioning at least.
Interface:
The interface is similar to World Tour, but it's a little different. The songs are now listed like in Guitar Hero III, so it's easier to browse. Also, taking a cue from Rock Band, the game now lets you know during the song what star rating your current score will net you. It presents this as a small number that is hard to read instead of a sequence of stars like in Rock Band, so the system is flawed. However, it's still a fairly nice addition. Scores, however, are a bit problematic. In career mode, scores are no longer saved, only star ratings. This seemed kind of pointless to me, although at the end of a song, it does let you know if you set a new high score even if they won't tell you what your old scores are. Top scores are saved for Quickplay however, although you'll have to dig around through the menus to find them.
Characters/guitars:
Character/guitar customization is just like in World Tour except there are some new bonus characters (Kind Diamond is the only one I recall, but I think there's more).
As stated in my World Tour review, character creation is kind of mediocre, but the guitar customization is nice.
Difficulty:
Finally, they've found the sweet spot in terms of difficulty. It's easy to "beat" the game, but it's difficult to beat every song.
Guitar Difficulty: Basically, I like playing songs that I can beat but keep me on edge (stuff like tier 7 of Guitar Hero III). This game is packed with these kind of songs. Guitar Hero games usually go from very easy to very hard as you progress through the tiers. This game trims away the songs from both ends. That is, there are not very many easy songs, but there are no ridiculous ones either. Most of the early songs feel like tier 5 or so in Guitar Hero III and the later songs feel like tier 7 or the easier songs of tier 8. Slayer's "War Ensemble", the only song I have left to beat on Expert, is the hardest song on guitar. It's one of those songs that I've found hard to pass, but not so hard that I feel like I'll never pass it. Other songs like "Dyers Eve" and "Hit the Lights" are somewhere around "Cliffs of Dover" or "Cult of Personality" in terms of difficulty. I failed a few sightreads, but was able to beat everything except "War Ensemble" in just a few tries. So there's nothing as evil as "Jordan" or "Through the Fire and Flames", but there are quite a few "Hangar 18"'s and "Free Bird"'s in the game. One thing I did notice, however, is that there aren't as many 3-note chords as before (although I do recall one 4-note chord).
Bass Difficulty:
I'd say this is the hardest game yet for bass. Had trouble with "B.Y.O.B"? Well, just try and give "Dyers Eve" or "Fight Fire with Fire" a shot. The open notes are back and in full force. Overall, the bass difficulty is not unreasonable just like guitar, but it's still very challenging. I haven't finished every song yet, but I haven't had too much trouble so far, so expect a challenge but nothing too over-the-top.
Drums Difficulty:
I haven't tried Expert+ yet (drums are the instrument I'm worst on). Like Bass, I haven't quite finished the Drum career yet, but I think it's a lot more challenging than World Tour. Unlike guitar and bass, a few of the songs are simply ridiculous (Dyers Eve, I'm looking at you) and I've failed a good number of my sightreads (first tries). Fortunately, they do include some easier songs, so you can still find plenty to do even if you can't beat everything.
Vocals Difficulty:
It's easier to get a 100% now, but the difficulty isn't too much different from World Tour. Maybe it's slightly easier on average, but there are a few songs which are simply painful (e.g. Queen's "Stone Cold Crazy", Mercyful Fate's "Evil").
Setlist:
I'm in love. This has to be the greatest Guitar Hero setlist yet. A few of the song choices from non-Metallica bands are a little iffy, but most are pretty good and the Metallica songs are killer. Even Metallica seems to know their early stuff is their best, so the biggest emphasis is on their 80's material (6 of 8 Puppets songs are included), although there are songs from every album including "S&M" and "Garage Inc." There are a few obvious omissions, e.g. "The Four Horsemen" and "The Call of Ktulu", but otherwise it's almost perfect.
Overall, the Black/Load songs and the non-Metallica songs are the easiest, the pre-Black songs are the hardest (with a few exceptions - "Seek & Destroy", "For Whom the Bell Tolls", and "The Thing That Should Not Be" are pretty easy), and the St. Anger/Death Magnetic songs are somewhere in between. Due to having to progress from easy to hard, one would expect to have to play their less exciting Black/Load songs before jumping into their good stuff. However, this is not fully true. For one, they seemed to have intentionally mixed up the eras a bit even if this means a few songs are slightly mistiered...although you are stuck playing quite a few non-Metallica songs in tiers 2 & 4 (on all instruments). Also, due to the low star rating requirements, you can play songs from the late tiers in just a short while. So don't worry. You'll be playing "Creeping Death" in no time.
Leftover complaint:
Like Guitar Hero III and World Tour, saving still takes an eternity on the PS2 version.
Drum compatibility:
I use the Rock Band drums. They work just fine.
Bottom line:
Don't hesitate in the least. If you're a Guitar Hero fan or a Metallica fan, this is an absolute must-buy. |
amazing, but...
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| Review Date: April 3, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Robert J. Cottignies Jr., new jersey |
First off, I think this edition is superior to any other Guitar Hero game. The fantastic quality of the game and song selection is worth the extra money, which some people have complained about. Any fan of Metallica can appreciate the work put into this game. And for the impatient Metallica fans, you only have to beat a couple of songs to get about 9 more songs, so you can skip right to the 'tallica ones.
I don't care much about graphics, but the ones in this game are terrific. The band members look kind of creepy, but overall match pretty well with their actual appearances.
That said, my one complaint about the game is the final song. These types of game have been known for increasing the difficulty of songs, while giving you a powerhouse of a song at the end (Freebird, Through The Fire And Flames, etc). So what's the finale for this game? The Thing That Should Not Be. A good song in its own right, but anyone who knows it also knows that it's certainly not Metallica's fastest, most difficult or most interesting song by a long shot. It really boggles my mind as to why they chose it to be the final song. I just beat it on Easy and, especially after getting through Dyers Eve and Fight Fire With Fire (which are fairly tricky even on Easy), the one-note repetitive strumming of 'Thingy' was a giant let-down.
Apparently Neversoft didn't want to include Blackened or And Justice For All since they're available for Rock Band, which sucks but is fair enough. I have no idea why 'Thingy' was chosen instead of, say, The Four Horsemen. That song is fast, long and quite epic- perfect for the end of a Guitar Hero game. I've read some posts from people saying they couldn't include Horsemen because it would be too hard, but anyone who's played Dragonforce knows Neversoft can make anything work on Guitar Hero.
Aside from this one thing, the game is great. It spans Metallica's entire career to date, with at least one song from every album (which unfortunately includes Frantic from St. Anger and the dreadful NA NA NA NA nonsense of The Memory Remains from Reload). But you can get past those two and play some truly amazing songs, most of which I've gotten an even greater appreciation for after playing the game. You can also access "Metallifacts," which plays an animated video for every song (even by other bands) and gives you interesting facts about them, sort of like Pop-Up Video.
I definitely recommend this game for any fan of Metallica or Guitar Hero, and if you like both, you'll be in absolute glory. |
The best guitar hero game yet...
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| Review Date: March 29, 2009 |
| Reviewer: M. Powell, |
| If you like Metallica you are going to love this game. You get MOST of Metallica's best songs and can play them on guitar, bass, drums, or sing them on the mic. The career mode is improved over World Tour. You no longer have to play a whole set at one time to unlock the next. You have to get a certain amount of stars to unlock the next, but all the sets are so awesome you are going to want to play them anyway. There are several new features such as Metallifacts which is basically the band playing a song and it giving little VH1 style tidbits about the song while it is playing. The note charts seem to be better than on World Tour as well. There are also little improvement to the interface as well, but let's face it....a guitar hero game is only as good as it's soundtrack. If you don't like metal you probably won't like this game. If you do you are in for a treat with songs such as: Master of Puppets, Enter Sandman, Fade to Black, One, Dyer's Eve, Battery, Hit the Lights, Nothing Else Matters, One, King Nothing, Seek and Destroy, For Whom the Bell Tolls, etc. Not to mention the other bands in the game: Slayer, Alice in Chains, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Machine Head, System of Down and others. It's quite exciting listening to the Ecstacy of Gold as Metallica comes on stage and then rocking out to For Whom the Bell Tolls. So if you are a Metallica fan you have to pick this one up, even if you aren't and you just like a good guitar hero challenge this one should keep you busy for awhile. |
Possibly the best Guitar Hero out of all of them
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| Review Date: April 5, 2009 |
| Reviewer: E. Phillips, |
Guitar Hero: Metallica was one of my most anticipated video games of 2009 and it didn't disappoint. After this many games, I think I should summarize the series in a paragraph. GHII was an amazing game even if it didn't have the best soundtrack because the game play overshadowed it. This was the last official GH made by Harmonix. GHIII was a great game and was the last GH I was satisfied with. It only had a few minor issues such as easy hammer-ons/pull-offs and over charted songs. GH: Aerosmith was just plain boring and was a simple cash in. GH: World Tour, they started getting better at charting, however, the set list ruined that game. Guitar Hero: Metallica is the first game where Neversoft got everything right. They nailed it.
Let me start off saying that this is, like I said in the title, possibly the best GH out of all of them and I don't know if they'll ever be able to top it. GHM follows GHWT's formula, meaning that bass, drums, and vocals are back. Drums have a new difficulty, Expert+, that uses another bass pedal. I haven't really played any career except guitar, which is ten times more fun than GHWT's guitar career. I do know that the vocals are fixed since they were broken in GHWT. In battle mode, there are a few new additions, "Ride the Lightning", which is designed after "Amp Overload", and "Fade to Black", which blacks out your note chart. There were only a few songs I didn't find fun, while literally half of GHWT wasn't fun. I know that I'm mentioning GHWT a lot in this review, but its because it disappointed me so much and its hard to believe this was made by the same company. GHM has gotten me back into GH after two big disappointments. If you're a fan of Metallica or have been waiting for another good GH, buy this now. This is also a good start if you're new to the series. |
A must have for GH Fans
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| Review Date: May 25, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Mike Keeley, Iraq |
| This Guitar Hero game is by far my favorite, great game play, every song has its own unique style and flare from the digital band themselves. You do not have to play through the entire career mode to quickplay any song you want. However customizing your rocker is not as fun considering 80% of the songs that are fun to play are Metallica and you always have to play as the band. I rarely see my rocker at all. |
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