‘Guitar Hero: Metallica’ Review (Xbox 360)

The masters of the never ending song have landed themselves their own Guitar Hero title. Metallica, the group that made me fear the words “now I lay me down to sleep,” has teamed up with Activision to bring home Guitar Hero: Metallica. And, I couldn’t be happier.

Whether you’re a staunch Guitar Hero fan or an avid Rock Band supporter, at some point you probably had the nagging complaint that the included set list is filled with one too many ducks. Going on a world tour to play a set filled with three songs that put you to sleep just doesn’t feel like the life of a rocker. The folks over at Guitar Hero decided to circumvent this issue by creating band dominated games, like Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, in addition to their more universal, World Tour, set list releases. Guitar Hero: Metallica makes no apologies about being just that – Guitar Hero: Metallica. If you love Metallica, you’ll love this title. If you don’t… well, then you won’t like it – plain and simple. There are no surprises as to what you get when you pick this one up. You a 49-song set list and over 20 guest acts.

Let me warn you, this is one of the most challenging releases of a band simulation title to date. Casual players who thought they were cool rockin’ out on Medium difficulty will find that the amount of notes and chords packed into a single Metallica song are so intense you’ll be sweating after just one track. Seriously. Most songs tend to break the typical three to four minute guide and will have you strumming for days on end. But, you’ll never get bored because any given Metallica songs doesn’t bear the same repetitive riffs you’ll find in your average Rock Band or Guitar Hero track. Expert drummers will have their hands full trying to step up to the Expert+ Lars level with a second bass pedal. This difficulty level requires a splitter. Unfortunately, for Rock Band owners the second pedal isn’t compatible with their existing drums, so they’ll have to go out and buy the Guitar Hero drums to compete with Lars.

The game concept is simple. You play through several venues visited by the band throughout their three decade career. Stadiums are amazingly well designed, some bearing crosses, and will take you from the Meadowlands to Metallica’s Monsters of Rock in Moscow performance in 1991. With the challenging set list, you’ll be thankful that you need not complete every song in order to beat the game. You’ll also never be forced to play the same song twice.

When you play any of Metallica’s songs, you play as one of the four band members: Hames Hetfield, Kirk Hammett, Rob Trujillo, and Lars Ulrich. Their digital representations are spot on and will have you immersed in the metal magnificence that is Metallica.

The menus have the same basic layout as World Tour. This title does not try and reinvent the wheel or step up from its predecessor. What you do get is a ton of Metallica fan fav additions. Like Blu-Ray movie releases, you get some cool Behind-the-Scenes footage of the band during the making of GHM. For instance, you can watch Lars trying desperately to work the motion capture devices, while pounding away on the drums. Even though the video will show you that the process was difficult for Lars, you’ll be thrilled with how well this translated to band in-game movement. There are also hours of real video footage from the bands extensive career.

Despite having an amazing track list and a stellar guest act list, the game does suffer when it comes to downloadable content (DLC). Whereas in Rock Band II and World Tour you can jump on the Xbox Live Marketplace to grab new songs to add to your set list, Guitar Hero: Metallica limits your DLC exploits to “Death Magnetic.” Sure, it’s great to have 49 of the top songs from the band’s infant album “Kill ‘em All” through the recently released “Death Magnetic,” but it bites that any music expansion requires you to swap games for World Tour.

Guitar Hero: Metallica brings the joy of being a metal rebel home. If you’re a die hard Metallica fan or just looking for a real challenge this is the title you must have. The complex songs will ensure that you won’t have a dull moment, while playing through the band’s several decade-long career. However, the lack of DLC really hurts this one. With the full World Tour package retailing near two-hundred dollars, it would have been nice if the price point had been lowered to $49.99. That way more casual gamers would be inclined to pick this one up.