All metal heads rejoice, place your devil horns in the air and mosh to Metallica… however, are Activision pulling your strings or is it some kind of (ROCK) monster.

Unlike Guitar Hero: Aerosmith this isn’t a story of the bands career from beginning until now, it is something much more fan oriented and fits with the features that were added to the series with GH: World Tour (GH4).

The game opens straight away to you playing as the band, once you’ve got enough stars to continue, the story truly begins with you inspired by Metallica, to create a band which later becomes Metallica’s support band, it’s as simple as that.

Now this is where the gameplay is interesting… and a bit of a let down.
When playing Metallica songs you play as the band, when you play other bands songs i.e Foo Fighters, System of a Down, Motorhead and so on, you play as your custom band, but it just doesn’t feel like a Metallica game. With that the game kind of looses its appeal until you’re playing as Metallica again which once you do, it brings a massive smile to your face.

It’s nice to see what other bands that the group like or were inspired by but when you’re playing every last Metallica song ever, then nothing else matters, sorry I had to do that.
If you purchased the DLC album: Death Magnetic, which can be used with GH3 and WT, then you can play the DLC within GH: Metallica. Obviously, depending on your hardware, PS2 and Wii big no, PS3 and 360 yes.

Every instrument makes you feel like you’re playing as the band, especially the drums, yes ladies and gentlemen World Tour’s band feature is included in the game and to make things even better you can even use the Rock Band gear to play the game. Although for drums we recommend you get the World Tour kit for an even better experience, which the game constantly reminds you before the beginning of every song.

For any massive Metallica fan, Guitar Hero Metallica is worth getting; however for casual audience or long time fans of the series it might not really be worth it as the game is full of features and fan trivia thus appealing more to Guitar Hero veterans.

+ Good variety of songs.

+ New Metallica themes and features.

- Limited DLC.

Custom Bands don’t feel like a Metallica game should.

8.0/10

By Darren Arquette Posted Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009 7:02 pm