Metallica . . . Guitar Hero . . . It's Official!

[metalmike]

Track list for the upcoming game



Guitar Hero . . . The Songs
1/23/2009 [ back ]


Another piece of the Guitar Hero puzzle . . . the track listing! In case you're just tuning in now, the all 'Tallica Guitar Hero will be hitting the streets on March 29 with some really cool features like different classic venues such as the L.A. Forum, Tushino Airfield, and The Hammersmith Odeon, the ability to play as us or in single instrument mode, and even the Expert+ setting with double bass drum kick pedals.
So without further ado, here are the songs on the game . . . both from us and from some of the bands we admire and even call friends:

Metallica Tracks
All Nightmare Long
Battery
Creeping Death
Disposable Heroes
Dyers Eve
Enter Sandman
Fade To Black
Fight Fire With Fire
For Whom The Bell Tolls
Frantic
Fuel
Hit The Lights
King Nothing
Master of Puppets
Mercyful Fate (Medley)
No Leaf Clover
Nothing Else Matters
One
Orion
Sad But True
Seek And Destroy
The Memory Remains
The Shortest Straw
The Thing That Should Not Be
The Unforgiven
Welcome Home (Sanitarium)
Wherever I May Roam
Whiplash



If you downloaded the "Death Magnetic" album for Xbox and PS3, those ten songs will play in their entirety in the full game mode. PS2 and Wii versions (coming in the Spring, most likely in early May) will include "Broken Beat & Scarred," "Cyanide" and "My Apocalypse" since they are not compatible with the Death Magnetic downloadable content.


Other Artists
Alice In Chains - No Excuses
Bob Seger - Turn The Page
Corrosion of Conformity - Albatross
Diamond Head - Am I Evil?
Foo Fighters - Stacked Actors
Judas Priest - Hell Bent For Leather
Kyuss - Demon Cleaner
Lynyrd Skynyrd - Tuesdays Gone
Machine Head - Beautiful Mourning
Mastodon - Blood And Thunder
Mercyful Fate - Evil
Michael Schenker Group - Armed and Ready
Motorhead - Ace of Spades
Queen - Stone Cold Crazy
Samhain - Mother of Mercy
Slayer - War Ensemble
Social Distortion - Mommy's Little Monster
Suicidal Tendencies - War Inside My Head
System of a Down - Toxicity
The Sword - Black River
Thin Lizzy - The Boys Are Back in Town



*tracklist subject to change*

[echoes]

mercyful fate (the medley) is included! fuckin awesome!

[azsapphire387]

I really hope DLC will be available, I don't want to have to buy a second GH Metallica game just to play more of their songs. I also hope the DLC will be cross-compatible with GHWT, similar to Rock Band and Rock Band 2's DLC.

Here's some interesting info, Gamestop's prices:

PS2 - 39.99
Wii - 49.99
PS3 - 59.99 with free bonus*
X360 - 59.99 with free bonus*

*Reserve Guitar Hero: Metallica and receive a Guitar Hero: Foot Pedal. The pedal comes with a splitter allowing it to be used simultaneously with another pedal. Available for online and in-store customers while supplies last.

I'm really tempted to buy the PS3 version instead of the Wii version, but I only have Wii GHWT drums and the bonus kick pedal won't work with my PS3 RB2 drums!!!

[metalmike]

‘Guitar Hero: Metallica’ Designer Discusses Old Bassist, Dangerous Slayer Lyrics, More



We recently met with the lead designer of “Guitar Hero: Metallica,” and he told us what Slayer track didn’t make the cut, why Cliff Burton isn’t in it, what it was like to mo-cap Robert Trujillo’s braids and more.

***

I saw “Guitar Hero: Metallica” at a demo in New York earlier this month, and I just filed a story at MTVNews.com that explains the new details. However, lead designer Alan Flores also revealed a few extra tidbits that both Metallica and “Guitar Hero” fans would appreciate…

MTV Multiplayer: Is bassist Cliff Burton [who was killed in a tragic bus accident in 1986] in the game?

Alan Flores, lead designer: I think I can definitely say no. That was actually kind of sensitive thing with the guys in Metallica. We asked them about that and they never said no. They just went, “Ehhh.” They didn’t want to make [current bassist] Rob Trujillo feel like he wasn’t as important a part of the band as he is. So there’s no Cliff Burton in the game, but there’s Cliff Burton in spirit. You get to play his basslines. We talk about him in the Metalli-facts [trivia] as well.

MTV Multiplayer: How much mo-cap did the band come in and do?

Flores: They did a bunch. At first, they did six songs… and then James and Lars came back multiple times to do tons of stuff. It was really cool. And when we did the motion-capture stuff, we put motion capture on Robert’s braids. It was funny because we were sitting there in the motion-capture thing, and there’s four of us holding up his braids. Because, otherwise, they get all tangled up, you don’t know where the braid is on the motion-capture and you don’t know where you’re going to animate it to.

MTV Multiplayer: Did you have a hard time getting Slayer into the game because of their lyrics?

Flores: The Slayer story was interesting. We’ve had Slayer in [a "Guitar Hero" game] before. But now, you can sing their lyrics. It’s a totally different ball of wax. We had the song “Angel of Death” cleared. Anybody that knows Slayer knows that that song is not about, “Hey, it’s good to go out there and do these terrible things.” They did a song about a really bad guy and it’s obvious that they didn’t put any commentary into the song, but some people interpreted it the incorrect way.

And that controversy probably blew over 10, 15 years ago, right? Everybody knows that, but it’s going to show up in a video game and some parents might see it. We couldn’t get that song cleared, and we had to take it off. Which personally killed me because Slayer was my absolute favorite band when I was in high school. And Lars was like, “We have to get Slayer, we have to get Slayer, we have to get Slayer.”



Then we got “War Ensemble” cleared, but it’s after we’ve gone down the line and got all our songs done. Lars really wanted it in the game. I really wanted it in the game. But I didn’t want to be the guy who broke the bad news to everybody and says to the people on the team, “Hey, you know what? You all need to stay late and do extra work because Lars wants a song in the game.” But he was really adamant that it needed to be in the game.

So we sucked it up, we did the extra amount of effort to put the song into the game at the last minute. But it’s Slayer. It just makes the game so much better. That song puts the high-end difficulty in there; it’s harder than anything else in the game, and it’s even hard on bass. And you can imagine what it’s like on drums with double bass pedals. It’s insane. It took a lot of extra work on our part. In the end, I’m glad we did it, and I appreciate everybody that had to pull together to try and get it done.

MTV Multiplayer: Did any Metallica songs have to be re-recorded for the game?

Flores: No, nothing had to be re-recorded. Though there was one point where they couldn’t find the masters for Kill ‘Em All. They were like, “Hey man, ask so-and-so in Copenhagen.” “No, I called him, he doesn’t have them.” “What about that guy in New York?” “No man, he doesn’t have ‘em either.”

At first, we thought they were just telling us they couldn’t find them, but they really couldn’t find those tapes! But then they magically materialized. I don’t know whose basement they were in, but they actually found them and it was pretty cool.

Some bands are willing to go back into the studio and re-record songs [when they can't find the masters]. And that really works well for some bands and doesn’t for others. I’m glad Metallica didn’t have to do that because they’ve changed so much over the years, like [James Hetfield's] voice is much different. He had a much higher voice then. I think they would’ve done a great version, it just would’ve been different, and you want to capture that magic of them being like 17 years-old.

MTV Multiplayer: Metallica songs are generally hard to play. Did you do anything to scale the difficulty? The songs in “Guitar Hero: Aerosmith” seemed easier.

Flores: There was a lot of flack after “Guitar Hero 3” came out that things were too hard. We were accused of over-tracking and adding notes, and it’s funny people say that because they don’t really understand what over-tracking is. I’ll tell you: the note trackers don’t add notes. Those guys sit there with headphones on listening to those stems, plopping every single note down. They’re going into minute detail, but the average person might not hear every note in the game they’re tracking.

So we sort of stepped that back and tried to do just an easier ramp once we got to “Aerosmith.” And I think we did a better job of making the songs not be punishingly hard all of sudden. That’s the same philosophy we had for “World Tour” and now with “Metallica.” We wanted the difficulty to have a nice, smooth ramp and be accessible to easy players and to expert players. But that being said, I think the end point of expert is really hard in this game. Slayer, the last few Metallica songs are really hard for the expert players and even expert-plus.

MTV Multiplayer: Is the music creation the same as in “Guitar Hero: World Tour”?

Flores: It’s the same as “World Tour.” The only change that we made to it is we re-sampled the guitar and the bass. They weren’t that great last time, so we sampled the ESP Truckster model that James Hetfield plays and the bass that [Slayer's] Tom Araya plays.

GHTunes works across both. So if you wrote something on GH Tunes in “World Tour” and you want to hear how it sounds with the Metallica samples, if you have the Metallica game, you can download the song and you’ll hear it there.

MTV Multiplayer: Is there any way to export songs from “World Tour” to “Metallica” or vice versa?

Flores: We didn’t do that. I’m sure [licensing] would be a part of it. We’d have to negotiate that, but that wasn’t something we were exploring. And then you get Metallica — part of it, they wanted it to be their band playing their songs.

MTV Multiplayer: Obviously some of these songs have appeared in other games or as DLC, but is there anything exclusive to this title?

Flores: I don’t really know that we have an exclusive deal other than Metallica appearing in our game. Maybe someone’s going to make another Metallica game right after this. [laughs] I think that would be unlikely, but you never know. There’s more songs to play.

MTV Multiplayer: Will this game come out with a bundle?

Flores: Right now this is slated to come out as a standalone. And you can buy the second bass pedal separately.

MTV Multiplayer: Are there any plans for Metallica-specific peripherals?

Flores: We’ll probably do faceplates. But Metallica drums and guitars are not the plan right now. Just decorative things.

***

“Guitar Hero: Metallica” will be in stores on March 29 as a standalone disc, with a second bass pedal sold separately.

[metalmike]

Metallica . . . Guitar Hero . . . It's Official!



THE GUITAR HERO: METALLICA game story was concocted by James Hetfield; players begin as Metallica's opening act, and eventually play as Metallica once they prove their mettle. Everything about the game, from the menu animations based on art by Pushead, Metallica's long-running collaborating artist, to venues and stage sets from all phases of the band's career to signature lighting effects and crowd chants will be familiar to fans. The motion-capture used to animate the band is strikingly lifelike, as all of the signature moves are there: the contemplative Hetfield during the opening of "The Unforgiven," the preening Ulrich hopping up from behind his kit to be seen after every song, and bassist Rob Trujillo's crabwalk and spins. The final tracklisting is as follows: 'All Nightmare Long', 'Battery', 'Creeping Death', 'Disposable Heroes', 'Dyers Eve', 'Enter Sandman', 'Fade To Black', 'Fight Fire With Fire', 'For Whom The Bell Tolls', 'Frantic', 'Fuel', 'Hit The Lights', 'King Nothing', 'Master Of Puppets', 'Mercyful Fate '(Medley), 'No Leaf Clover', 'Nothing Else Matters', 'One', 'Orion', 'Sad But True', 'Seek And Destroy', 'The Memory Remains', 'The Shortest Straw', 'The Thing That Should Not Be', 'The Unforgiven', 'Welcome Home (Sanitarium)', 'Wherever I May Roam' and 'Whiplash'

[metalmike]

Guitar Hero . . . The Survey



We're pretty sure that you know by now that the all 'Tallica Guitar Hero comes out in late March, so our friends over at Activision were hoping that you could answer a couple of quick questions to help them get ready for the release. And for your trouble, we're throwing in the chance to win a Guitar Hero World Tour game along with one of the snappy new Metallica Guitar Hero t-shirts...all you need to do is click off your answers to the five questions below and enter your e-mail address. We'll draw one lucky winner from all the completed surveys we receive.
A few minor details...you must be registered on the Metallica.com web site to enter (it's free!!), survey/contest ends February 13 at midnight PST, and remember, we do not share your e-mail addresses with ANYONE!

Thanks for your help!

Click here to take the survey today!

[metalmike]

'Guitar Hero: Metallica' Offers New Twists



Several new gameplay twists emerge for the first time on "Guitar Hero: Metallica," which arrives in stores March 29 from Activision.

Players have a double bass option on drums for the difficult and expert levels, which can be enabled by using a splitter and an additional pedal for the kick drum. In addition, all of the songs will be "unlocked" from the beginning of the game as opposed to them not being available until players reach certain levels, as in previous versions of "Guitar Hero."

"It was time to change it up a bit," Neversoft lead designer Alan Flores says. "Guitar Hero: Metallica" will be available for Wii, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 2. Aerosmith was the first artist to star in its own version of the game, which was released last summer.

This time around, in Career Mode, instead of taking players through the band's career chronologically like in "Guitar Hero: Aerosmith," gamers take on the role of a band that rocks its way onto a Metallica tour as the opening act, a premise based on a true story as relayed by frontman James Hetfield.

As would be expected with the high-octane music, the game's visuals are rich with pyrotechnics. Metallica also specifically requested that the concert hall views be rendered "in the round," like its most recent arena shows. Venues include the Los Angeles Forum and Moscow's Tushino Airport, where Metallica played before 1.6 million fans in 1991 as part of the Monsters of Rock tour.


There are 28 Metallica classics on "Guitar Hero: Metallica," as well as 21 songs from other bands hand-picked by Hetfield, drummer Lars Ulrich, guitarist Kirk Hammett and bassist Robert Trujillo. Rare live concert videos and vintage show flyers round out the gameplay experience.

Metallica begins a European tour Feb. 25 in Nottingham, England.

Here are the Metallica tracks on "Guitar Hero: Metallica":

"All Nightmare Long"
"Battery"
"Creeping Death"
"Disposable Heroes"
"Dyers Eve"
"Enter Sandman"
"Fade to Black"
"Fight Fire with Fire"
"For Whom the Bell Tolls"
"Frantic"
"Fuel"
"Hit the Lights"
"King Nothing"
"Master of Puppets"
"Mercyful Fate"
"No Leaf Clover"
"Nothing Else Matters"
"One"
"Orion"
"Sad But True"
"Seek and Destroy"
"The Memory Remains"
"The Shortest Straw"
"The Thing That Should Not Be"
"The Unforgiven"
"Welcome Home (Sanitarium)"
"Wherever I May Roam"
"Whiplash"

Here are the non-Metallica tracks on "Guitar Hero: Metallica":

Alice In Chains, "No Excuses"
Bob Seger, "Turn the Page (Live)"
Corrosion of Conformity, "Albatross"
Diamond Head, "Am I Evil?"
Foo Fighters, "Stacked Actors"
Judas Priest, "Hell Bent For Leather"
Kyuss, "Demon Cleaner"
Lynyrd Skynyrd, "Tuesdays Gone"
Machine Head, "Beautiful Mourning"
Mastodon, "Blood and Thunder"
Mercyful Fate, "Evil"
Michael Schenker Group, "Armed and Ready"
Motorhead, "Ace of Spades"
Queen, "Stone Cold Crazy"
Samhain, "Mother of Mercy"
Slayer, "War Ensemble"
Social Distortion, "Mommy's Little Monster (Live)"
Suicidal Tendencies, "War Inside My Head"
System of a Down, "Toxicity"
The Sword, "Black River"
Thin Lizzy, "The Boys Are Back in Town"

[metalmike]

Guitar Hero ... LEMMY!

2/12/2009



So hey, when we were thinking about this whole Guitar Hero thing, we thought we'd see if we could drag in some of our close friends into the game, too. Not only can you play as us, but we're happy to tell you that you can also play as our pal Lemmy from Motorhead!

Lemmy says, "It's great to be in Guitar Hero with all these famous people and I'm really pleased to be in it with Metallica...but James is still taller than me."

We convinced another buddy to join in the fun that is Guitar Hero..... more on that soon....

[metalmike]

LEMMY KILMEISTER from MOTORHEAD will be a playable character in the upcoming Guitar Hero: METALLICA, due in stores this spring. Gamers will have the option to either watch Lemmy's in-game likeness as he hammers away at his bass and sings in his signature, whiskey-drenched vocals, or they can step into his cowboy boots and learn to play 'Ace Of Spades.' "It's great to be in 'Guitar Hero' with all these famous people and I'm really pleased to be in it with Metallica," Lemmy said, "but James is still taller than me." Metallica and Motorhead have long enjoyed a mutual admiration of one another's work, as Metallica once played seven Motorhead covers under the moniker THE LEMMYS.

[azsapphire387]

Well, it appears that I no longer have a cause for worry. I've been checking various retailer websites and I see the same thing.

It looks like Activision has silently let stores know to expect the Wii version of Guitar Hero: Metallica on March 29 alongside the PS3 and X360 versions, and no longer in May with the Playstation 2 version. Amazon, Best Buy, GameStop, and WalMart all confirm this.

I haven't heard anything official, but this is great news for Wii owners if it's true. GH consistently sells the most copies for the Wii platform, and I'm glad Activision finally seems to recognize this. Looks like the vocal nature of Nintendo faithful has paid off once again.

[metalmike]

Metallica . . . Guitar Hero . . . It's Official!



Looking at the breakdown of Tracks from each album, we have...
Kill'em All- 3
Ride The Lightning- 4
Master Of Puppets- 6
...And Justice For All- 3
Metallica- 5
Load- 1
Re-Load- 2
Garage Inc.- 1
S & M- 1
St. Anger- 1
Death Magnetic- 1

*not including DLC

[metalmike]

New Guitar Hero game misspells "Lynyrd Skynyrd"

Lynyrd Skynyrd might not be the world's most intellectual rock band, but at least they can spell their own name. Which is more than we can say for whoever designed the cover for the upcoming Guitar Hero: Metallica game.


See The Offending Typo
Rolling Stone caught the spelling gaffe while checking out the game's cover art, which proudly displays the names of all the hard-rocking artists that grace the game's soundtrack. While bands like Judas Priest and Samhain enjoyed correct spelling, just off to the left of the "Hero" is the hitherto unknown band "Lynyrd Skynrd," whom we presume is some sort of Lynyrd Skynyrd cover band, minus a Y.

Guitar Hero: Metallica is the second game in the series to be based on the music of one particular group, following last year's Guitar Hero: Aerosmith. Since the Rolling Stone article broke, publisher Activision has updated the cover image in question. And that's a start, because haven't Skynyrd fans suffered enough?