Metallica Guitar Hero quickie review

I am so behind on lots of things, including posting to this blog instead of letting it all simmer in my head... but I managed to carve out a little time to get through a couple of levels of Guitar Hero Metallica yesterday on the XBOX360 ($37 @ Target through tomorrow!) which was well worth it. Now that I finally have the GH drums with the raised cymbals($30 on eBay brand new from the OEM shop, when they normally retail for $99.99... steals like this are one of the few GOOD things about the recession!!), I'm finding I'm playing GH more than Rock Band, which does not recognize the 5th pad (orange cymbal, actually). So, quickie review:

* cut scenes/ graphics / venues are fun & beautiful quality, especially if you unlock the Zombie Metallica costume achievement - or do as I did and use the cheat code via CheatCC.com [Green, Red, Yellow, Blue(2), Yellow, Red, Green], so you see them walk out in the intro to the Career mode as zombies - fantastic!

* Drums are a great workout on this - very heavy on the kick just as should be expected given Lars's style, but also very challenging because of this, esp. with some songs having a ton of syncopated kick drum, including Thin Lizzy's "Boys Are Back in Town".

* If that weren't enough, apparently some songs support double-kick drum controllers, noted by the "Expert+" level. Yikes. You can also just unlock virtual versions of these bigger kits so it looks cooler on screen even if you're still stomping just the one foot frantically in real life.

* Love that you can select your venue for songs the second time you play them, including Metallica's (super high-res - almost completely realistic when you first see it!) rehearsal space & recording studio, which means no cheering (or booing) audience but a quicker turn at the end of a song as well.

* Also love the realistic Hetfield intros to songs - waiting for him to also say "are you ready to rock, San Francisco?!".

* Pyro & lights are also very realistic & well-placed.

* I got a little lost in creating my avatar - almost too many variations, and instead of selecting from among choices of noses, eyes, etc., there are graduated controls to make these features wider, shift position, etc. in addition to the usual choices of colour and such. You're practically creating the thing from scratch. Another good 15 minutes was spent on quickly customizing my drum kit - the skin graphic choices alone are overwhelming. And then, oh yeah - I have to name my band and choose the logo - tired at this point so only chose a good name and settled for a decent logo.

* Second level seemed the hardest to me - only really knew one of those song selections so muddled through it.

* One of the best things (and I believe this may be true of GHWT as well but I haven't tried it) is being able to change difficulty levels while plowing through Career mode, so you can muscle up on the couple of songs you do well on without getting bored, but you don't get completely stuck as you level up and have trouble getting through some of the songs which would prevent you from proceeding.

* Some neat extras are available as you level up (e.g. lyrics), or as you unlock achievements, including "Metallifacts", a sort of pop-up video version of the song that plays through without you, with full concert graphics so you can lean back and enjoy them - and delivers trivia tidbits about the song across the lower third of the screen.

* Overall song list is great, but not as spectacular as I'd like it to be. Highlights for me include "Albatross" by Corrosion of Conformity (what a great surprise - I used to love this song and kind of forgot about it! It swings to play, fo' sho') and "Boys Are Back in Town" by Thin Lizzy... some of the other track choices from great bands are a little odd to me, most notably the track "Stone Cold Crazy", of all the Queen songs they could've chosen.

Overall, I would say if even 50% of the full tracklist inspires you, this game is well worth it. We haven't had a party around this title yet, but I'm sure the improved graphics and big rawk attitude will entertain the spectators even more than usual.