Game Informer Has the Goods on Guitar Hero: Metallica

Everyone who got their recent issue of Game Informer in the mail were privy not only to all the great shots of the new Uncharted 2 in the works, but a nice treat in the form of Guitar Hero: Metallica. Unfortunately, I did not get my monthly mag in the mail until last night and then had to fight the man of the house to finally get my grubby paws on it. By that point, the internet was already abuzz with the contents of the upcoming Metallica-centric game, but since not everyone on the planet gets Gamer Informer in the mail, I thought I would share a bit of the news with you.

First off, like the Guitar Hero: Aerosmith game, it will include other bands that Metallica feels have inspired them or made an impact on their genre of music over the years. One of the bands that Metallica fought hard to get included on the disc was Slayer, and the reason it was such a fight had a lot to do with the band’s lyrics. Apparently, Microsoft has issues with certain lyrics in songs, and have a tendency to say “nay” to quite a few. Good for Metallica for fighting for what they believe in and getting the speed metal band included! We are unsure at this point what the song is exactly, but it will definitely be something that will require some skill. One of the bands that Metallica really wanted to include was Iron Maiden, but for some reason or another they just could not get it done. That is indeed unfortunate.

One of the cool things about the upcoming Guitar Hero: Metallica is that you will be able to use your Guitar Hero: World Tour peripherals to either play guitar, drums, bass or vocals. Hmmm.. I wonder how many kids will be going to school hoarse the next day trying to duplicate James Hetfield’s growlish vocals? If you are more interested in the drum aspect though, there is also a new mode for drummers called Expert Plus which will allow for the use of an extra bass pedal providing you are coordinated enough to mimic Lars Ulrich’s frantic feet (which is about as nice as I will be towards him).

The setlist listed below is not complete, as not all songs for the game have been revealed.

Confirmed Songs not by Metallica:

“No Excuses” by Alice in Chains (They could have picked a better one, but at least it’s not “The Rooster”)
“Turn The Page” by Bob Segar
“Hell Bent For Leather” by Judas Priest
“Demon Cleaner” by Kyuss
“Tuesdays Gone” by Lynyrd Skynyrd
“Blood and Thunder” by Mastodon
“Armed and Ready” by Michael Schenker Group
“Mother of Mercy” by Samhain
“Black River” by The Sword
Additional songs by Queen (YES!), Slayer and the Foo Fighters

Confirmed Songs by Metallica:
“Enter Sandman”
“For Whom The Bell Tolls”
“Fuel”
“Hit The Lights”
“King Nothing”
“Master of Puppets”
“No Leaf Clover”
“Nothing Else Matters”
“Sad But True”
“The Unforgiven”
“Wherever I May Roam”
(Where the hell is “Fade to Black”?)

Additional goodies on the disc include DVD style content with photos, set lists, fan club videos, rare live and behind the scenes footage as well as new tones for GHTunes with James Hetfields ESP Truckster guitar and Slayers Tom Araya’s ESP Bass. A drum fill mode which is a cheat that lets you play freestyle drums on a song using Metallica drum sounds, and the ability to watch performances of each track overlaid with pop-up style windows that point out band trivia are also included.

If you do not have a subscription to Game Informer, you might want to run out a buy a copy from GameStop if you are a Metallica fan or are just interested in the upcoming game because Lars talks about having to wear motion capture suits and how silly he looked and felt in them. You also get to hear about all the trouble they went through to get the master tapes as well has having to kind of re-learn some of the stuff they did way back when.

Big thanks to Scorehero for alphabetizing the tracks so that I did not have to.