Gaming Cookies For You: Shreddin’ With The Best Of Them
Systems: PlayStation 2, Wii, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
ESRB Rating: T (for Teen)
Channeling your inner heavy metal love can be easy enough with the right conditions involving loud speakers, lots of head banging, and singing at the top of your lungs. However, for video gamers, playing air guitar just got a whole new level of fun and amazement. Stunning audiences with their ability to rock it out playing guitar in front of audiences from a basement to a stage with thousands of screaming fans, Guitar Hero hit shelves in late 2005 and allowed gamers to play songs from greats ranging from Ozzy Osbourne to Jimi Hendrix to Sum 41. Leaving players begging for more, it spanned two sequels, a world tour theme, and two particular band themed games. The latest release, Guitar Hero Metallica, does not fail to get your blood pumping and head banging.
Featuring a staggering 49 song playlist for players to choose from, 28 of the song choices are by Metallica themselves while the remaining 21 songs that Metallica claims, “…their personal favorites and influences from over the years.” Giving us songs ranging from the head banging Motorhead’s “Ace of Spades” to the slow and heart wrenching rhythm of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Tuesday’s Gone”, fans of metal and video gamer fans of the Guitar Hero series will easily become entranced. Varied enough so any veteran metal fan will appreciate it, Guitar Hero Metallica’s playlists attracts both the old and the new.
Game play and online experience vary a little bit as the platform gamers purchase the game on. Purchasing the game for the older generation console, the PlayStation 2, players are limited to the given game play and not allowed online access. New to the series, Guitar Hero Metallica offers the game play difficulty “Expert +”, which can test even veteran drum players. Requiring the use of a second bass drum pedal, four player mode has never proved more challenging than before. Guitar Hero developer Activision deserves high praise as it has now taken the crown in most challenging game playlists to date.
Online game play, while not having changed much from the game series previous installment Guitar Hero World Tour, customizing your personal avatar for the game play has not changed much. True that having your own character to stand out, while not the point of the game, can add a bit of aggravation to the concerned player. However, one thing that stands out above everything else in Guitar Hero Metallica is the amount of work that went into the motion capture of Metallica’s band members. Having Metallica themselves perform their songs extensively for the game play, video games will most likely feel like that they are at a one on one concert themselves.
There is something to be said about a game if players keep coming back to it and with the head banging qualities of Guitar Hero Metallica, players will indeed be coming back sooner than later. The only downfall to the whole game is the taxing the Expert+ mode can have on players. Once that second bass pedal is plugged in, players can kiss their lower legs goodbye and can plan to walk away with a world of hurt. Metallica is known for their shredding and head banging and players will certainly get a large dosage of that. With two major bands now under their belt, who knows what fans of Guitar Hero will be screaming for now.
Overall Rating: 9 out of 10
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Posted by Jackie Steponaitis
on Apr 16, 2009 Filed under Entertainments.
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