When writing about games, there are assignments that you absolutely enjoy, and at other times, there are assignments that make you cringe at the thought of trying to cover.  Such was the case with the demo dropping for Guitar Hero: Metallica today on the 360.  I am one of only two writers on staff that own an Xbox 360, which means that it was up to one of us to grab the demo for a spin.  Since I downloaded the demo first, it came to me.  It was a dread assignment if only because I still hold a grudge against Metallica from the whole Napster lawsuit days, as well as the fact as I feel the Guitar Hero franchise has gone down the tubes like a shot of Liquid Plummer.  All that aside, I castigated the thoughts of hatred towards Metallica with the intent of giving the demo a fair shot, and at worst, there was a Queen song I could play over and over.

When the demo loads up you are given a short video clip of the band with a backdrop coming over them and announcing the title of the game, Guitar Hero: Metallica.  You can play as a solo artist or as a band in the demo and you can play one of four songs.  Unlike my earlier article, it looks like online play is not active.  Sorry for getting anyone’s hopes up.  You can choose a rocker, but I think it choses one automatically if you do not.  Don’t bother trying the customize feature as nothing is available to customise with, barring styles, like Goth or Death Metal.  The menus look similar and you will have access to all band equipment in this title, unlike the Guitar Hero: Aerosmith game, which was guitars only.

Opening up the tracks, I went to Queen’s “Stone Cold Crazy” and jumped in at Medium difficulty.  Upon entry to the game a few things immediately popped out.  The interface seemed cleaned up, with the score meter getting smaller and to the right.  As the notes came down one other thing became apparent and was much appreciated.  The note streak announcements are much more subdued and do not plaster themselves over the note chart.  Also, as you play you will notice other little touches like a note highway that changes decorative styles on each song.

Even in the short demo, I noticed a huge amount of style that shows that Metallica put a lot of their own time into giving a feel to the game.  The characters look like ringers for the actual band, and when you play Metallica songs, little things happen like the background shaking a bit on hard hitting notes.  It sounds weird, but it comes off really well.  Playing the demo for Guitar Hero: Metallica, points out how bad the Aerosmith game was in comparison.

Finally, we come to actually playing the songs, and it feels like they tuned things up quite a bit, although vocals are still off quite a bit, but the game does feel like it is a ton of fun to play.  I think it has more to do with getting back to what makes Guitar Hero games awesome and that is hard hitting guitar riffs, which you get in droves with “Seek and Destroy”  Even on Medium, the solo in the middle will blister some fingers unless you master hammer ons and offs.  By the end of the demo, I had the headbanger shake going on, wondering if I misjudged this title too quickly.  I know, I know, I should be yelling, “IT’S A TRAP!”, but I have to admit I had a ton of fun playing all four songs.  I will definitely add it to my Gamefly queue, but I will consider it a possible purchase down the road.