If there was ever one band whose songs where made for Guitar Hero then it had to be Metallica, therefore when Guitar Hero: Metallica was announced I for one was overjoyed, but do these two great institutions meld together as well as you would expect?

 

Just looking at the back of the box should ease any worries you have of this game being a failure, the set list alone was certainly enough to convince me, not only do all of the classic and modern Metallica tracks make an appearance but the band have also hand picked some of their favourite tracks from other artists such as Foo Fighters, Tenacious D, Queen and Alice in Chains to name a few and it has to be said that all of the tracks picked by the band compliment their own tracks perfectly. I will say now that playing through the songs on this disc is amongst the most fun I’ve had on Guitar Hero as their music translates to the game perfectly.

 

 

If the track list isn’t enough to convince you then fear not because this game certainly has more than one string to its guitar. Just like the main release (Guitar Hero World Tour), this game supports all of the instruments, therefore you can sing, play guitar, bass or drum, this alone sets it apart from Guitar Hero Aerosmith which unfortunately did not support these features.

 

To progress through the game you follow a system where you only have to meet certain requirements to reach to the next venue, for example the requirement could be to gain ten stars, therefore if you max out two songs you will then unlock the next venue. Playing the game in this way can see you complete the game without actually having played all of the songs, which not only gives you plenty of reason to go back but also means that you are unlikely to lack the motivation to continue. As you play through the game you will unlock items such as Metallica’s guitars and other gear, therefore the more you play the more of the bands stuff you will unlock for use.

 

One of the things I personally found odd with this game is that none of the tracks I had downloaded for Guitar Hero World Tour were present when visiting the downloaded tracks option, in fact all that does work here is the Death Magnetic album. It would have been nice for the developer to support users downloaded tracks as swapping the discs over just to play songs you have previously download seems unnecessary, plus I paid for them so would it have been hard to give me some extra value for my hard earned cash?

 

The gameplay itself is not too much different from previous games in the series, therefore anyone who has played before will be able to pick this up without any difficulty whatsoever. I must admit that I did think that the game may have been a bit unforgiving when it came to the difficultly as songs such as Metallica’s seemed like they would be quite daunting to play, however I actually found that I was able to play along without too much difficulty, well to begin with anyway. Perhaps the hardest part of the game is actually having the endurance to finish the songs, after all anyone who knows Metallica knows that this is a game that is going to be quite unforgiving to your fingers/voice/arms (select for your instrument of choice) due to the sheer length of the songs.

 

Another area where the game is strong is in it’s presentation, The band members all look fantastic as well as quite realistic, everything from their movements to their attitudes seems to have been captured well. The same can be said for the rest of the game too, it really is very well polished and you can tell that a lot of sweat has gone into making it perfect, perhaps the band themselves had a hand in making sure this was the case?

 

 

There really is a load of stuff included on the disc to make fans of the band happy, including lyrics to all of the songs, behind-the-scenes footage, galleries and also the rather cool Metallifacts, which are available for certain tracks and pop up facts on-screen (ala VH1 Pop-Ups) as you watch the song of your choice play, this is a great addition and I really enjoyed using this feature.

 

Overall anyone who loves Metallica will want to own this disc, and anyone who is a fan of the series so far cannot go without it. Guitar Hero: Metallica not only provides some of the most challenging songs yet but it also packs in loads more too, in fact it all goes so well that it really does feel like a marriage made in heaven.