ghm-150Peripheral based instrument games based around a single band don’t tend to hold up well. Guitar Hero: Aerosmith made the rookie mistake of thinking that there’s anyone left who still cares, even slightly, about Aerosmith, whilst AC/DC Live: Rock Band Track Pack was a horrible misfire, serving up a paltry 18 songs from Australia’s favourite hard rockers.

Guitar Hero: Metallica, then, has beaten The Beatles Rock Band to the punch as the first truly worthwhile rhythm game based around a specific band. GH:M feels more like a tribute to kings of Heavy Metal (last few releases notwithstanding….or so the internet would have me believe, as I honestly hadn’t spent much time listening to them before receiving this game) than a game focused solely on them. Featuring 31 tracks from Metallica and 21 from other bands, GH:M aims to not only show off the band’s best, but also the bands that have influenced, been influenced by, or simply proven somewhat comparable to Metallica. What this means is that you end up with a kickarse track list with just enough diversity.

The list of songs here is slim when compared to GH3 and World Tour, but almost every song here is very well geared towards rocking out on plastic instruments, pretending to be a rock god or goddess. In the interest of full disclosure, it should be noted that this review is only able to cover the guitar side of things, as it was the only instrument available to me. By all reports the drumming is very solid too, with the inclusion of the insane ‘Expert +’ mode meaning that anyone with a spare foot pedal can send themselves down the road of early arthritis in style. The singing probably won’t draw in the usual karaoke crowds, but metal fans should lap the track list up.

At least the crowd are enjoying themselves...

The most important part of any band game is, of course, the note charts, on which front GH: Metallica certainly delivers. They’re not all perfect – Mastodon’s ‘Blood and Thunder’ doesn’t seem to quite have the timing down on Normal and Bob Seger’s ‘Turn the Page’ is an incredibly boring play on lead guitar – but for the most part they’re the most fun track lists since Neversoft nabbed the franchise from Harmonix. Regardless of your feelings on metal, it’s a genre of music well suited to this kind of gameplay, with the note charts generally representing the fast pace, blistering solos and epic nature of the music on show very well. Song progression has been tweaked so that new songs are unlocked much faster – on normal, you can access the final performance by finishing about 15-20 songs, as long as you play them well. Also, call me crazy, but some (optional) boss battles, ala GH3, wouldn’t have gone astray. I suppose a Metallica vs. Iron Maiden showdown is a bit much to ask for.

This screen actually features an in-game model of Jickle. Cool, huh?

Difficulty is, as usual, an issue of contention. Medium difficulty seems a little faster, although the window of opportunity to strum still feels quite forgiving. It’s not necessarily any harder, although it is a bit more fun than usual. The jump to Hard (or Expert for that matter) is, as before, a big one, and with some of the tracks going on for longer than we’re used to anyone not willing to master the game will be pretty severely punished for playing on the higher difficulties. For the hardcore fans of the game (who should have rushed out and bought it somewhere around this review’s third sentence), this is a blessing rather than a hindrance. For the rest of us poor souls, it just means that the period between ‘knowing how to play’ and ‘actually getting good’ will, potentially, be a long one. In the mean time, however, five starring your way through Medium is a fun way to kill a week.

On Wii, Guitar Hero: Metallica isn’t the most well presented game. The menus are all rather plain, the bonus videos and cutscenes are poorly compressed and, when you’re actually playing, the audience are a bunch of N64-style barely animated cardboard cutouts. And the plot is worse than ever, but that was to be expected, right? But it’s not all bad. The actual band on stage, which will either be your own band, ala the other Guitar Hero games, or Metallica themselves depending on the song you’re playing, are more fun to watch than ever. The animations really match up with the music this time around, a personal favourite moment being the singer and two guitars all grouping around the microphone during Queen’s ‘Stone Cold Crazy’. Metallica, too, are well captured on stage.

'I think I just sharted...'

The whole ‘plastic instrument rock band’ genre is still riding strong, four years and about six thousand games after the debut of the first Guitar Hero. GH: Metallica does nothing to break the mould, and doesn’t present any innovation outside of the reportedly insane Expert + mode, but it is the first time the ‘game based on a single band’ approach has actually worked. Even if you’re not a big Metallica fan, their version of Guitar Hero is worth checking out. So Neversoft, how about Guitar Hero: KISS with free facepaint, rubber tongues and fake blood next time, huh?

By James O’Connor

Graphics: C+

Lazy for the most part, although the on-stage animations are better than ever.

Sound: A

The best Guitar Hero soundtrack on Wii (until Smash Hits, perhaps).

Gameplay: A-

Solid note charts, fun songs, good times all round.

Overall: B+

Not the biggest, but certainly the best Guitar Hero on Wii.

REMINDER: Win this game here! Competition closes 25th June!