Guitar Hero still, to this day, stands as the most popular interactive gaming franchise ever released. The competition from Rock Band is stiff, but Guitar Hero continually come out on top with each additional entry into the franchise. A full blown sequel is planned, Guitar Hero 5, but that installment is yet to receive an official release date. In the meantime, Neversoft have developed Guitar Hero: Metallica, featuring the chance to master the riffs from one of the best bands in the world, along with those the band have influenced with their record breaking style.
Guitar Hero: Metallica introduces a number of new features to the fold, specifically engineered to befit the skill of its namesake. Foremost amongst these is the Expert+ setting, which emulates the band's extensive use of base pedals. Expert+ allows you to plug in an extra kick pedal for advanced difficulty. This may not sound like such a big addition at first, but consider that this difficulty option will up the amount of notes that will appear onscreen to a total of seven. If you choose to do it, you should find yourself constantly moving your feet from one pedal to the other during some songs, while at the same time pulling off beats on the other note pads. This setting takes a lot of sweat and blood, but is ideal for those experts who always feel the need to master something more.
As befits a game dedicated to a single band, Guitar Hero: Metallica features a number of band sepecific additional content, ranging from unlockable videos and live footage, to pop up facts and trvia that give you interesting information concerning the songs and how they were written, influences behind them etc. perfect for the Metallica fans this game is aimed at.
Music Studio returns, which is highly welcome news for fans of this feature as it is easily the most popular addition to the recent games. The ability to create your own songs has been augmented by new tones and features, aswell as adding a distinct 'Metallica' feel to the music.
These additional features look certain to combat the negative vibes received concerning earlier installments which were specific to one band; namely that replay value and range were next to nothing. So if you're a fan of the franchise as a whole, and of course of Metallica and their music, then this is definitely the game for you!