Guitar Hero: Metallica Review

In some ways, Guitar Hero: Metallica is the anti-Rock Band. While Rock Band has taken a significant bite out of Guitar Hero’s market share with party-friendly tunes and an unadorned interface, Guitar Hero: Metallica is tailored for the basement-dwelling Guitar Hero and Metallica obsessives who don’t want any pop songs on their plastic guitar games. They just want to rock out, man.

On that front, Guitar Hero: Metallica certainly delivers. Its gameplay is more difficult than an average Guitar Hero game, and its softest tune is by Lynyrd Skynyrd. But what it lacks in mass appeal it makes up for in presentation. Metallica were recorded in 360 degrees in motion-capture suits, creating an experience that feels like watching a DVD of a Metallica concert.

The game’s greatest asset and weakness is its track list, which pulls from Metallica’s back catalog in the form of the hits and deep cuts, in addition to more than 20 tracks by other artists chosen by the band. However, many of the tracks feature too much fretboard-melting that goes on far longer than your enjoyment will last. Even the slower songs — Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Tuesday’s Gone,” Thin Lizzy’s “The Boys Are Back in Town,” and Bob Seger’s “Turn the Page” — are on the long, complex side of the spectrum.

Singing, like guitar playing, can be an exercise in perseverance as much as skill building. Most of the time on the mic, you’re required to shout, grunt, and scream in harmony with the vocals of James Hetfield, which is slightly absurd since Metallica have never had anything resembling harmonious sing-along vocals in any of their songs. But on the plus side, I finally found out “Fuel” is literally about a car engine.

Lars Ulrich is often held up as one of the best drummers of all time, and the drumming experience is appropriately difficult and fill-heavy. The biggest variable feature of Guitar Hero: Metallica is that it has a level beyond expert on drums, due to the inclusion of a double-bass drum petal. The review copy didn’t have one, but I used to be a drummer, and I had difficulty keeping up with the single-bass drum patterns on expert, so I can only imagine it’s pretty difficult.

Playing bass on Guitar Hero: Metallica is probably the closest to an authentic experience because you begin to feel like Jason Newsted did when he left the group in 2001 (minus the years of alcoholism and hazing) — inconsequential and underutilized. You’re always fourth fiddle, your bass lines never becoming more than barely audible and consisting mostly of percussive riffs meant to augment Lars Ulrich’s drumming, not move the song. Bass is typically a minimally enjoyable experience on Guitar Hero and Rock Band (minus the Pixies tracks on Rock Band), but here it’s downright tedious.

Like all Guitar Hero games, the Career Mode leaves a lot to be desired in the drama department. Because all of the songs are available in the Play Now mode, your principal purpose is to make enough money to buy new guitars and clothes and unlock random factoids about Metallica. That’s cool up until you purchase your 10th Flying-V and fifth pair of leather suspenders and learn a lot of information about Metallica that every fan will already know. Because it’s hard to imagine busting out Guitar Hero: Metallica to play “Whiplash” on expert for shits and giggles after a tough workday, the game has a very short shelf life.

In addition, I was disappointed to find that the game had no real narrative arc other than playing a giant concert as Metallica. Perhaps given the touchy nature of the band’s lineup changes (original bassist Cliff Burton died in a buss accident, original guitarist Dave Mustaine was thrown out, and Newsted departed acrimoniously), a game that follows Metallica’s arc as a locally known hardcore band to the latest classic-rock dinosaurs was unfeasible. But given that Beatles: Rock Band is promising a storyline, the fact that the game features a lot of songs by Metallica might not be enough to compete in the future.

That said, Metallica are probably the perfect band for the Guitar Hero franchise; their music is loved by a legion of incredibly devoted fans, who probably overlap heavily with Guitar Hero fans. Given that Activision can pump these games out at a regular clip (at least one a year, and Guitar Hero: Van Halen and Guitar Hero 5 are slated for later this year), expect more band-oriented titles in the future. Introducing the latest in band merchandise: the $50 video game.
By Andrew Winistorfer of Prefix Mag

Peak Starpex Guitar Hero Controller Review

Eyewitness News Reporter Tommy Noel continues to test toys this month for his “Does it Really Work?” segment.

For today’s product, some of the testers just couldn’t put it down!

A lot of Channel 3 employees like Guitar Hero, so we’ll have them test out the Peak Starpex Guitar Hero Controller.

Guitar hero has caught the attention of gamers of all ages.

“Whenever I go to my cousins that have it I usually just play it the whole time,” says Theo Dawson.

“After a hard days work, I go home and relieve stress by playing Guitar Hero,” says Kerri Huyck.

“It makes you feel way awesome,” says Scott Dixon.

But could the Peak Starpex Wood Controller make you even more awesome?

First impressions. All three of our testers immediately noticed the difference in size compared to a regular controller.

“It was really heavy,” says Kerri.

“It was big. Compared to the others, it’s a lot bigger,” says Scott.

“It’s a little heavy but it’s pretty cool,” says Theo.

So the coolness factor may make up for the extra weight. Our testers consist of experts, close-to-experts, and novices. All played a song at their appropriate skill level.

“The square buttons made it easier to roll around your fingers,” says Theo.

“It just looked way cooler,” says Scott.

The testers had their opinions fairly quicky of the Starpex, it was just difficult to pry them away from it. The main drawback for our testers, the size.

“I just didn’t like the weight, that’s it,” says Theo.

But our evening producer Scott was impressed.

“It was better than I expected. The other guitars are all made of plastic and cheaply made, this one felt pretty solid could last thru a lot of stuff,” says Scott.

Turning to the Noel-O-Meter.

“I would give it a three,” says Kerri.

“I’d give it a four,” says Scott.

“Maybe a four,” says Theo.

So this may be a good Christmas gift… Except for Sarah Schwabe.

“We failed, that’s how bad we are,” says Sarah Schwabe.

Zero Punctuation: Guitar Hero World Tour

This week, will Zero Punctuation’s rock star fantasies be fulfilled with Guitar Hero World Tour?

Guitar Hero Mobile: New look, new sound, drums!

When you’ve got a game as compelling and competitive as Guitar Hero World Tour, you get it on as many platforms as you can as fast as you can, including the mobile phone. On Thursday, the mobile version of Guitar Hero World Tour became available on AT&T phones. We got to try it out.

On the PlayStation, Wii, and Xbox, this fourth Guitar Hero installment counters Rock Band’s drum and vocal tracks, which themselves had one-upped Guitar Hero’s original stringed instrument. Vocals aren’t practical for the mobile version–which still rocks, by the way–but a drum track is. Activision and game-maker Hands-On Mobile have introduced a drum choice for every song.

There’s a lot more news here–the updated game, which has a new look and two fresh game-playing features (can you say “battle mode”?). There are also technical details that could make a difference to how the game looks and sounds on your individual phone. Finally, there’s all the practical stuff about when your carrier will stock the game and how much it’ll cost you. Let’s take one at a time.

Gameplay

Anyone who has played Guitar Hero III Mobile (video review) will feel right at home with Guitar Hero World Tour Mobile, which begins with fifteen new songs for guitar and drums, and which uses the phone’s keypad buttons instead of guitar frets. When it comes to customization, you drummers out there are an afterthought–guitarists can choose their instrument, but not you. Also, when you’re playing drums, the bottom row of keys (7, 8, 9) stand in for the kick-drum, which is represented in the game by a horizontal purple line that floats at you along with the notes. I played several songs in the drummer’s mode, where the kick-drum line helped keep the game interesting.

Also new to the mobile game is the multiplayer battle mode, where Hands-On Mobile has created a good way to pair you up with similar players all over the world. You’ll be matched by skill level and by phone type (more on this below.) You’ll divvy up picking a song and the instrument, and will have to use your star power strategically (called battle power in this mode) to keep your opponent from scoring. After playing, it’ll be easy to track your score from the accompanying Web site (launching Friday). This is neat, but what if you want to play your friend? You should be able to duke it out with personal pals as well as with perfect strangers.

Guitar Hero World Tour Mobile is a fun game to play; at two minutes per song, it’s also well-suited for playing in-between other activities. This World Tour version sports a darker look and more updated graphics, but for some reason, Hands-On Mobile has opted for tiny, ornate–even arcane–font that might be favored by the Black Sabbath crowd, but which frankly is uncomfortable to read on a tiny screen. Judy and Axel are also mini. The avatars’ small statures may help the characters render better (or make you notice wonky animation less,) but if they’re part of the draw, then I want to be able to look my singing, head-banging avatar right in the rock ‘n’ roll eyes.

Technical details

Sound quality on Java (J2ME) phones was the number-one complaint of the first mobile Guitar Hero. In World Tour, Hands-On Mobile has improved the audio for Java phones, bringing it up to the MP3 quality of other platforms.

The graphics have also improved. BREW and Windows Mobile users get 3D graphics, while animation for the J2ME phones has gotten smoother since the last version. It’s still not as good as most console games, but considering how much action is crammed onto a roughly 2-to-3-inch screen, it’s pretty impressive. The graphical quality will also depend on each individual handset. Higher-end Sony Ericsson phones will give you a richer experience than Motorola V3 RAZRS, for instance.

Handsets make a difference in the visual experience, but also when it comes to playing the game and matching up players for battle mode. Those high-end phones will support multiple key presses, which add an element of difficulty if you need to press two keys at once to play a chord. Phones that don’t have that capability get a different pattern of notes that excludes mutli-pressing. To keep things fair, you won’t battle anyone with a different key press philosophy than yours.

Easy to pick up and (mostly) easy on the eye, Guitar Hero World Tour Mobile is as equally suited to casual gamers as it is to fans of the console games looking for a quick guitar-licking or drum-pounding fix before they can make it back to their plastic instruments.