Guitar Hero: Metallica

Poetic

The concept of a metallica guitar hero game is ingenious, because nothing symbolizes guitar hero more perfectly than metallica. Each started out small, with a small group of extremely loyal fans. Gradually, as they became more popular, they changed, until now, they have completely forgotten what made them successful in the first place, and spend too much time thinking they're painfully awesome to make an attempt to please fans. When playing, you will feel disappointed, but be shocked at how poetic the idea of the two merging is.

As far as the game itself goes, it's guitar hero. you know what to expect. But metallica's influence can be seen everywhere in the game. This may seem kind of pointless to say, but there are features in the game that just seem like metallica insisted the game feature them. For example, to make the game more mainstream, there is now a "Beginner" mode, which is just insulting to anyone trying to play. There is a cool new feature where you can make charts for songs and put them online, but true to metallica's piracy politics, you have to write the actual song yourself with some badly programmed software, and cannot simply import a song onto your hard drive and chart it, so this feature is ultimately pointless.

The actual game itself, however, reeks of metallica in ways that I cannot begin to explain, and it's almost worth a rent for the absurdity of it all. While the default characters you can use still have a cartoonish feel to them, the character models for Metallica's members are completely different, and almost frightening in their accuracy, almost as if metallica owuld not be happy with simple charactures of themselves. The venues that you play at are strikingly faithful recreations of the stages metallica uses, and the character's behaviors before begining a song are alot more over-the-top than in any other installment of the game. However, rather than coming off as a sincere effort to faithfully recreate the metallica experience, it seems more arrogant. You get the feeling that metallica simply thinks they're insanely awesome, and did it more to gives James Hetfield something to masturbate to. Rather than being impresssive, it's almost vulgar and creepy.

The thing that makes this game truly disappointing is the setlist. In the back of my mind, ever since guitar hero came out, i've always wanted a game similar to this. When they announced this game, I got really excited. Metallica has some songs that would be almost orgasmic to play on guitar hero. Words fail me when it comes to this setlist. Don't get me wrong, there are some really good songs on the disk. However, activision obviously chose the setlist according to mainstream popularity. Enter Sandman, The Memory Remains, No Leaf Clover, and plenty of new songs are there. However, most of the songs on the disk are similar to those, and the songs that are missing are the songs that made me excited for a Guitar hero Metallica in the first place. Sure, some staples like Fight fire with fire and disposable heroes are there, but rather than please me, these songs simply seem like a slap in the face. I just couldn't stop wondering how on earth they would put Dyers Even or Hit the Lights in, then not put in Ride the Lightning, Trapped Under Ice, Damage Inc., Motorbreath, Phantom Lord, or Metal Melitia in. Those last two songs are the reason I started playing Guitar to begin with, which is what Guitar Hero was supposed to be all about. Being able to play songs people wish they could play on the guitar. This left me speechless.

This is not a bad game. It's not broken, it's perfectly functional, and doesn't frustrate. If you're a fan of modern metallica, definately pick it up. However, if you like old-school metallica, don't even pick it up. You'll feel betrayed, because the game left out all the reasons you bought it to begin with, and you'll just be disappointed, because you'll know you can never have it.

Functional but immensely disappointing.

Guitar Hero Metallica