IainThe Thing That Should Not Be
Metallica have been at the forefront of the metal scene since their first album, Kill ‘em All so ever since Guitar Hero first hit the shelves, a Metallica tie-in was almost guaranteed. Now, after 4 fully fledged games, Guitar Hero: Metallica is here and what a disappointment it is.
Game play wise, GH:M plays almost exactly the same as World Tour although it does have a few new additions. These include a star counter so you can see how well (or not) you’re progressing with each song and a new difficulty level for the drums called expert+, allowing the use of a second kick pedal. The career mode is played out in an interesting way, alternating between playing as the mighty Los Angeles metallers themselves and your very own covers band hoping to make it as Metallica’s supporting act but as good an idea as this is, the setlist really lets the game down.
Sure it has most of Metallica’s biggest hits throughout their 28 year history, but there are only 49 songs on this fully priced expansion and the non-Metallica tracks (supposedly hand picked by the band) are on the whole, rather weak. But these aren’t the only disappointments as far as the songs are concerned; The tracks are very unevenly paced with one of the easiest songs in the game being the final song, leading to an easy 70G for beating it on expert difficulty and the full list can be played through in half a day (Within the first two days of owning it, I managed to beat bass on expert and guitar on hard).
Graphically, GH: M offers no improvements over World Tour and while the venues and camera effects look really good, some of the character models look downright awful. In fact, the in game versions of James Hetfield, Kirk Hammett and Rob Trujillo look terrible. The animation isn’t much better either with inconsistencies such as Rob spinning around with his bass flailing during a bass solo. The sound quality on the other hand is solid, using master tracks for all the songs and often providing better than CD quality recordings.
Overall, Guitar Hero: Metallica is a huge disappointment. Even as a Metallica fan, I found the £45 price tag a bit too steep for what is essentially an expansion pack. GH:M has clearly been made in a rush, with shoddy character models, a quick and easy setlist and very little new features. The addition of Metalli-facts, providing behind the scenes footage and information about the band’s career, may be enough to attract die hard fans, but for the casual Guitar Hero market, it might be an idea to wait until a price drop or two.
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