The Info Bit
Genre: Music/Rhythm Action
Players: 1-4 Online and Offline (with appropriate instruments)
Format Played: PS3
Also Available on: XB360, PS2, Wii
Rating: ?
Metallica, one of the most prominent metal bands of the past 15+ years, to many they are gods……but god hasn’t got his own computer game!
For those of you who haven’t played Guitar Hero in any of its previous forms, a brief history lesson. The year is 2005 and Guitar Hero first hits shelves worldwide, at first people don’t know what to make of a game which you play with a guitar shaped controller instead of their normal pad, but soon people are rocking away to all the classic hits of yesteryear in their front rooms. This inevitably meant a year later we would see a sequel and thus Guitar Hero 2 was born but its popularity only grew and so a third game was released the next year (2007 for those who can’t count).
Unfortunately in 2008 the makers went slightly mad and thought that instead of compiling a game with all sorts of wonderful classic (and by this point a bit of modern) rock and metal music they would base a game entirely on one band….unfortunately that band was AEROSMITH! If you’re an Aerosmith fan I apologise but frankly the game was (inset expletive here) and as a result didn’t sell very well, luckily the makers (one Red Octane Studios) had regained their sanity a few months later to release Guitar Hero World Tour, which instead of just a guitar playing mode now included singing and drum sections, with appropriate peripherals sold separately. This made it much more than ever a ‘party’ game that all the family/friends could play on those dull winter nights and so my dear friends that is the story of Guitar Hero, until now.
Due for release at the end of May is the next instalment of this wonderful franchise, which as you can probably imagine based on the headline is all about Metallica. Before I go on I’d just like to thank Karl (some of you know him, some of you don’t) for letting me play his copy of GH: Metallica because without that, this reviw obviously wouldn’t be possible.
I’ll admit when I first heard about another ‘single band’ version of Guitar Hero I was worried, not in the least because of how bad the Aerosmith one was, but more because the beauty of Guitar Hero has always been, that you play all sorts of songs across all sorts of genres of music and tying it in to just one act always seemed, to me to be going against what guitar hero was all about. I was however proven wrong in this instance as GH: Metallica embodies everything that makes guitar hero so fun, the crazy riffs and the mad drumming.
I would guess if you hate Metallica then you probably wouldn’t like this game, if only because you wouldn’t recognise most of the songs, which range from ‘Frantic’ off the ‘Saint Anger’ album to most of the ‘Master of Puppets’ album and everything in between. There are also some ‘cameo’ songs by other bands Metallica ‘like’ but these do fall short in that you’ll know the band name but many won’t know the song, these include Alice in Chains and Suicidal Tendencies amongst others.
My only other bugbear is that because of Rock Band (same game pretty much but made by another company) Guitar Hero is missing a couple of really good Metallica tracks most notably ‘Blackened’ and ‘…And Justice for All’ because Rock Band own the licenses to them currently, and there is only one track ('All Nighmare Long') from the Death Magnetic album which is a shame, although you can download them onto GH: World Tour and they should work with this version as well.
But enough about the bad stuff lets move onto the good, firstly all the songs are the proper versions (no covers here guys!) and appear to be motion captured with the band actually singing and playing so when your not playing and just watching it feels a little like your at the gig. If you’re a drummer you can (if your crazy) buy a second foot pedal for your drum kit and use it to play double bass drum on expert drumming but I didn’t have a another pedal and it just sounded to scary so I didn’t try that. It’s hard to describe in a review but the atmosphere of the game has improved, what I mean by that is you get immersed even more than you used to into playing the songs, maybe its because of the way most Metallica songs are I don’t know, but even when I was doing horribly on some of the really hard riffs I was still enjoying trying to be like Metallica and when I pulled off a solo it just felt like the crowd were cheering me on (its sad I know but take it as you will).
So that’s it, thank you Red Octane for not messing it up and proving that if you find the right band, you can have specific band based Guitar Hero games. If you have played the guitar hero games before and like them I highly recommend getting this one to add to your collection, if you’ve never played them before it might be an idea to start with World Tour or something before going headlong into Metallica but that’s your decision, either way anyone who likes Guitar Hero should own this game, even more so if you’re a Metallica fan as well.
Iron Maiden next? Who knows but it’ll be fun finding out and until then I‘m sure Metallica will keep us all amused, I’m off to sing along to For Whom the Bell Tolls and headbang myself into a coma, enjoy everyone, I know you will.
Stars out of Five: 4 ½
*Contrary to my statement on the blog this game is currently not out yet but is only about three weeks away (unless they delay it again) and the version I played was an American copy
Genre: Music/Rhythm Action
Players: 1-4 Online and Offline (with appropriate instruments)
Format Played: PS3
Also Available on: XB360, PS2, Wii
Rating: ?
Metallica, one of the most prominent metal bands of the past 15+ years, to many they are gods……but god hasn’t got his own computer game!
For those of you who haven’t played Guitar Hero in any of its previous forms, a brief history lesson. The year is 2005 and Guitar Hero first hits shelves worldwide, at first people don’t know what to make of a game which you play with a guitar shaped controller instead of their normal pad, but soon people are rocking away to all the classic hits of yesteryear in their front rooms. This inevitably meant a year later we would see a sequel and thus Guitar Hero 2 was born but its popularity only grew and so a third game was released the next year (2007 for those who can’t count).
Unfortunately in 2008 the makers went slightly mad and thought that instead of compiling a game with all sorts of wonderful classic (and by this point a bit of modern) rock and metal music they would base a game entirely on one band….unfortunately that band was AEROSMITH! If you’re an Aerosmith fan I apologise but frankly the game was (inset expletive here) and as a result didn’t sell very well, luckily the makers (one Red Octane Studios) had regained their sanity a few months later to release Guitar Hero World Tour, which instead of just a guitar playing mode now included singing and drum sections, with appropriate peripherals sold separately. This made it much more than ever a ‘party’ game that all the family/friends could play on those dull winter nights and so my dear friends that is the story of Guitar Hero, until now.
Due for release at the end of May is the next instalment of this wonderful franchise, which as you can probably imagine based on the headline is all about Metallica. Before I go on I’d just like to thank Karl (some of you know him, some of you don’t) for letting me play his copy of GH: Metallica because without that, this reviw obviously wouldn’t be possible.
I’ll admit when I first heard about another ‘single band’ version of Guitar Hero I was worried, not in the least because of how bad the Aerosmith one was, but more because the beauty of Guitar Hero has always been, that you play all sorts of songs across all sorts of genres of music and tying it in to just one act always seemed, to me to be going against what guitar hero was all about. I was however proven wrong in this instance as GH: Metallica embodies everything that makes guitar hero so fun, the crazy riffs and the mad drumming.
I would guess if you hate Metallica then you probably wouldn’t like this game, if only because you wouldn’t recognise most of the songs, which range from ‘Frantic’ off the ‘Saint Anger’ album to most of the ‘Master of Puppets’ album and everything in between. There are also some ‘cameo’ songs by other bands Metallica ‘like’ but these do fall short in that you’ll know the band name but many won’t know the song, these include Alice in Chains and Suicidal Tendencies amongst others.
My only other bugbear is that because of Rock Band (same game pretty much but made by another company) Guitar Hero is missing a couple of really good Metallica tracks most notably ‘Blackened’ and ‘…And Justice for All’ because Rock Band own the licenses to them currently, and there is only one track ('All Nighmare Long') from the Death Magnetic album which is a shame, although you can download them onto GH: World Tour and they should work with this version as well.
But enough about the bad stuff lets move onto the good, firstly all the songs are the proper versions (no covers here guys!) and appear to be motion captured with the band actually singing and playing so when your not playing and just watching it feels a little like your at the gig. If you’re a drummer you can (if your crazy) buy a second foot pedal for your drum kit and use it to play double bass drum on expert drumming but I didn’t have a another pedal and it just sounded to scary so I didn’t try that. It’s hard to describe in a review but the atmosphere of the game has improved, what I mean by that is you get immersed even more than you used to into playing the songs, maybe its because of the way most Metallica songs are I don’t know, but even when I was doing horribly on some of the really hard riffs I was still enjoying trying to be like Metallica and when I pulled off a solo it just felt like the crowd were cheering me on (its sad I know but take it as you will).
So that’s it, thank you Red Octane for not messing it up and proving that if you find the right band, you can have specific band based Guitar Hero games. If you have played the guitar hero games before and like them I highly recommend getting this one to add to your collection, if you’ve never played them before it might be an idea to start with World Tour or something before going headlong into Metallica but that’s your decision, either way anyone who likes Guitar Hero should own this game, even more so if you’re a Metallica fan as well.
Iron Maiden next? Who knows but it’ll be fun finding out and until then I‘m sure Metallica will keep us all amused, I’m off to sing along to For Whom the Bell Tolls and headbang myself into a coma, enjoy everyone, I know you will.
Stars out of Five: 4 ½
*Contrary to my statement on the blog this game is currently not out yet but is only about three weeks away (unless they delay it again) and the version I played was an American copy
