Kombo's Review Policy: Our reviews are written for you. Our goal is to write honest, to-the-point reviews that don't waste your time. This is why we've split our reviews into four sections: What the Game's About, What's Hot, What's Not and Final Word, so that you can easily find the information you want from our reviews.

What the Game's About
Guitar Hero: Metallica should be pretty self-explanatory. It's a Guitar Hero game with a nearly all Metallica set-list. The band hand selected some songs from other artists to round out a more diverse list of songs you can drum, sing and strum to.

What's Hot
Metallica's music goes extremely well with the entire Guitar Hero attitude. The band's guiding hand is evident with all the extra modes and features that are packed on the disc. Metallica's songs are carefully selected for a nice blend of songs that span the entire length of their illustrious career. GH: Metallica is just about everything you'd expect from a superstar band's own version of a cultural video game phenomenon.



The inclusion of a second bass drum pedal is just another way to kick your ass when Expert mode is getting too easy. With Expert+ you better be getting your feet warmed up for some serious drum work. On the flip side, if you think you are better than Lars Ulrich, Drum Over mode allows you to play whatever kind of beat you want to any of the songs on the disc.

The biggest hallelujah is the way Quickplay is now setup. Gone is the tedium of unlocking songs for Quickplay. You have access to the entire disc of content if you have your friends over and don't want to play through a career mode first. Having that ability is a major time saver and allows you to jump in and enjoy the game.

What's Not
Limited scope of the game out of the equation, with Guitar Hero: World Tour being a smashing success, you'd think there'd be an option to access some of your content from that game with the Metallica disc. The blunt fact is you can't access DLC outside of Metallica's own album download. That limits the game considerably with all the songs are more or less locked away on its own Metallica Island when there is a vast sea of other Guitar Hero content.

Final Word
There are bones thrown to casual fans as well as guitar gods that are sure to reignite the fires of rock and roll. Obviously, if you aren't a fan of Metallica, you aren't going to be a fan of their version of Guitar Hero. Even if you aren't a fan, it is undeniable that GH: Metallica is the best version of the Guitar Hero franchise to date, from a technical standpoint. GH: Metallica is guaranteed to exceed your expectations.