Guitar Hero: Metallica In-Depth Hands-on

Mar 11, 2009

Ever since the first Guitar Hero hit the PlayStation 2, gamers have been clamoring for Metallica content to hit the series. After all, the band has been responsible for countless hopefuls picking up a guitar and learning to play One, myself included, so getting them into the franchise has been a longstanding dream. They first made an appearance in Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, returned again in Guitar Hero World Tour, and their latest album, Death Magnetic, was available in its entirety day and date with the album release as downloadable content for both GH3 and World Tour.

But all of that is nothing compared to what's in store for us with Guitar Hero: Metallica. The game features more than 45 tracks, more than half of which are from the band itself, along with a ton of extras and behind-the-scenes content to give even the biggest Metallica fan something new to see. The game goes beyond simply letting you play the band's most famous songs by giving you an inside look at the group's history, including notes from old tours, lyric sheets, fan-made videos taken at small shows and much, much more.

Ride the lightning in HD.

We were able to play a mostly open version of the game recently, giving us a chance to dig into the songs and see what all is in store for fans of both the Guitar Hero franchise and the band itself. Obviously, the track list is killer. While it isn't as large as World Tour or especially the entirety of Rock Band with all of its DLC included, it is probably my favorite setlist of any music game to date. It obviously helps that I'm a huge fan of the band, but these tracks are undeniably fun to play. If you're not into Metallica and metal in general, this obviously isn't the game for you, but those of you who are (and there are a ton of you), this is exactly what the doctor ordered years ago.

While the band's music sounds perfect for a game like this and you can probably easily imagine what it's like to play most of the songs, I was actually surprised that the level of fun surpassed my expectations, which were already quite high. There's something about the way the songs are played and the rhythm of everything that makes these tracks a perfect match for plastic guitars and drums.

Lars' drum work especially stands out here. He mixes up the rhythm often enough by throwing in little fills here and there and shuffling snare riffs that makes sitting down behind the plastic skins incredibly rewarding. When you play a track like "Creeping Death" and get to the "Die, die, die" part, the drums are elevated to a level that we have rarely seen in other tracks. This happens often enough that by the time you finish a setlist, you can't help but have a giant grin on your face.

Obviously, the guitars too are incredibly fun. Metallica helped make the power chord a household term, so chugging away at blistering speeds while testing your chops is par for the course. The songs are hard, but not overly so, giving you enough of a challenge to make you feel accomplished every time a song ends and the game rewards you with the patented "You Rock!" graphic on the screen.

One thing that I'm a fan of this time around is the game's return to simplicity with regards to its progression. Gone is the gig-based progression from World Tour, replaced by something much closer to the original tier-based structure of the early games. However, one very nice change is that you no longer need to finish each song to move on to the next tier. Instead, each unlockable section has a star requirement, so as long as you've earned the requisite number of stars, that tier is open for play. In other words, if you can't seem to nail the solo in Master of Puppets and keep failing out, you can go back and work to get better scores in other songs that you can pass to hit your next star count goal and unlock more songs.

As mentioned, the game contains a huge amount of fan service by way of videos, images and more. One of the coolest elements here are the Metallifacts, bits of information that come up like VH1's Pop-Up Video as the game plays a virtual concert for you. After you finish a song that has Metallifacts assigned to it, you can then watch (but not play since you'll be reading) the game play the song for you with cinematic camera cuts and all that jazz. Information bubbles come up as the song plays, giving you insight into the lyrics, what the band was doing when it was recorded, inspiration notes and so on and so forth. For fans of the band, it gives you an inside and intimate look at the songs that you've probably never seen before.

Outside of that, you can also watch a number of behind-the-scenes videos that give you a glimpse at how the game was made, including looks at the band as they play tracks in motion capture suits. You'll also find scraps of papers containing notes from shows, lyric sheets, photos and lots more to peruse through. It's almost like a multimedia diary that you can browse through at your leisure. Very cool stuff indeed.

One thing about the game that I'm very happy with, especially after playing it for a number of hours, is the quality of the animation and attention to detail with regards to the band members. There's still a little bit of that signature exaggerated look going on, but there's no mistaking the four fellas for anyone but Metallica. The motion capture sessions that I mentioned above were implemented in the game beautifully, and anyone who has watched the band for an extended period of time will immediately recognize each members' movement nuances. From James' head tilts while singing softer segments to the way he can jump in and off the mic, to Kirk's posture during a blistering solo and even down to Lars' aggressive attack of the drums are here and shown off beautifully. Really, the guys at Neversoft seem to have spent a ton of time getting this right, and it really shows.

One last notable thing I want to mention so that you know to look for it in the retail release is the Drum Over option. Drum Over allows you to play a song, on the drums obviously, without any assigned notes to play. You can play whatever you want without having to worry about failing, which is awesome. The game uses samples from the original track, so if you play "For Whom the Bell Tolls", the drums will sound like they did on Ride the Lightning. Here's the catch though: the option isn't available from the start. It's actually a cheat code that you need to enter. It was designed this way as whatever you score in the mode obviously doesn't jive with the leaderboards, so tucking it away as an unlockable mode was Neversoft's way of making sure people understood that and weren't confused. It remains to be seen how well known Neversoft makes this mode after release and if casual gamers will know to hunt down the code, but now you know at least.

Guitar Hero: Metallica ships in just over two weeks, hitting stores on Sunday, March 29th. Start getting ready now because you're going to need to be warmed up to tackle some of these tracks.