Customer Reviews

Guitar Hero Metallica

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

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.

I am not the usual demographic of person who plays Guitar Hero (a 40-something female who did NOT purchase the game for her children or grandchildren...it's for ME!) I also have GH 1, 2, 3, Aerosmith, and World Tour. The Metallica version is loaded with their music...it highlights their career, their accomplishments, and their overall greatness, but does so without the distasteful narcissism of the Aerosmith game (which was, IMHO, a colossal waste.) The Metallica game is, when comparing difficulty levels, just a bit tougher than the others. If you're playing another GH game and are getting bored on your current difficulty level but find the next one up too challenging, try the Metallica game. It's harder, but without making you feel like there's no F in way a particular song could be done.

The only thing I do NOT like is waiting for-ev-er for the songs to load (similar to World Tour in this respect.) The tracks are epic in length (it's Metallica!) so this is to be expected. Thus far Metallica is the best GH game yet. I recommend you purchase and enjoy!

The first time I heard about Guitar Hero I immediately wondered if there were any Metallica songs. There weren't any, but I told everyone if they would just make an all Metallica version, it'd sell like hot cakes. Well they made it and I'm loving it.

To start, I know that there are many diehard Metallica fans out there, I am one of them. I am now 28, I have seen them 2 dozen times, met them once and was looking forward to this game so much. I HAVE NEVER BEEN SO SISSAPOINTED!!

The bonus features are weak, worthless and pointless to a fan. They put almost all new songs on here and if you are a fan of Metallica, you want a little bit of everything, from Hit The Lights to the newer albums which also are horrible.

Truthfully, do not buy this unless you find it on discount, it will let you down.

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I absolutely love this game! I am the hugest Metallica fan ever. And you can't honestly have a Guitar Hero game without putting a version out made specifically for Metallica. On this version you get to play 28 Metallica songs and 21 songs that the band picked that influenced them. The graphics are amazing! And for some of the songs, after you have "Rocked" it, you can listen to the song while reading some facts about that certain song or the video. I really like the fact that they will let you go back and watch Metallica play. For the previous games, it's kinda hard to play when you wanna watch and see what is going on with the graphics. You'd probably miss a note or two while trying to see everything. So you can actually sit back and watch the graphics on this one. The setlist is killer. You can play older songs from their albums up to "Death Magnetic". A great game for any fan of Metallica or the Guitar Hero series!!

The game came in pretty quick after i ordered it and i havent had a problem with it at all. Thank you

Coming from the perspective of somebody that's played GH since 2006, and practically grew up on metal music, this game is very enjoyable to me on a lot of levels. The song selection includes most staple Metallica favorites, along with a good number of "Oh! I remember that song!" ones. The "guest opener acts," an additional 20 songs mostly fit the mood rather nicely, too.

The easier levels can be kinda tough in comparison to other GH titles, so I wouldn't make this my first GH game, but once you know what you're doing, this title is a MUST to any metalhead out there. Rock on.

Love this game. I use the drums that came with my Rock Band and they work fine with the Guitar Hero Metallica game.

i have played this game many times on ps3 and so i decided to buy it for ps2 for me to play while i am in iraq. i enjoy the game on ps2 just as much as i did on ps3, there are very few changes. the load times seem slightly longer, but not so much that it bothers me. the graphics are still great and met all my expectations for ps2. the set-list is actually slightly longer because you do not have the ability to get on the ps store and download the full album of death magnetic, so they threw in a few more songs for the ps2 version. i can't really comment about the sound quality because i am not playing on a very good tv. overall, i still really enjoy this game very close to as much as i did for ps3 and i would recommend it to anyone that wants to save money and can overlook a few features that don't affect overall gameplay.