Guitar Hero: Metallica discussed by band members in interview

16 December 2008

Posted by:Josh

Now that Guitar Hero: Metallica has been officially unveiled, the band has been able to discuss the game.

They did just that in an interview with USA Today (via Kotaku) where they gave some interesting details on the game and their opinions on how video games like Guitar Hero World Tour and Rock Band 2 are changing the music scene in addition to how their game will play as opposed to the first band-centric Guitar Hero, Guitar Hero: Aerosmith (released earlier this year for Xbox 360, PS3, PS2, Wii and PC).

Discussing how Metallica wanted to the game to be, the drummer Lars Ulrich said:
“We wanted a little bit of a different slant. Basically, you start out and you play some songs and you get warmed up, and there’s a competition. We’re trying to pick a band to play with us and go on the road with us.”

Lead designer Alan Flores, who was also interviewed, explained that they couldn’t make the game chronological due to the need to have a gradual increase in difficulty. “We couldn’t do that because then you would play something off of [the band's first album from 1983] Kill ‘Em All and you would throw the controller against the wall and stop playing. We have to do it based on difficulty,” Flores said.

About 40% of the soundtrack in Guitar Hero: Metallica will be made up of other bands that influenced Metallica in some way. These bands include: Alice in Chains, Bob Seger, Judas Priest, Kyuss, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Mastodon, Michael Schenker Group, Shamhain, The Sword, Foo Fighters, Queen, and Slayer. All of them have been confirmed to be in the game and Guitar Hero: Metallica is expected to have a full songlist of over 45 tracks.

Also different in this version of Guitar Hero will be attacks that are Metallica-themed. They include: Fade to Black (turns opponent’s screen dark), Ride the Lightning (an “electrical attack”), and Trapped Under Ice (freezes the opponent’s whammy bar).

As far as what Metallica thinks about how music and rhythm games are changing the music industry, lead guitarist Kirk Hammet said this:

“I have a sneaking suspicion that the video game industry and the record industry are going to eventually just merge into one big thing. That’s cool in that it gives you a different sort of dynamic, a virtual aspect of the delivery of music rather than it just being one-dimensional. It’s enabling the artists to present the music in a very new and different and modern way.”

* Screenshot courtesy of USA Today