Guitar Hero: Metallica Hands-On Preview - Q&A

**ImaCarrot** · Joined: 06 Mar 2006 Posts: 2687

Preview Wiki Article

We recently got the chance to check out Guitar Hero: Metallica at a press event in San Francisco. Feel free to ask questions about the game and those in attendance will do our best to answer them. We wrote up a small article with some general thoughts, read it first before asking a question to see if it is already answered there. Try and limit the number of questions asked by a single person, the more you guys flood us with questions, the longer it will take us to answer them.

We may also periodically lock the thread to gives ourselves a chance to catch up.

I've posted a lot of the frequently asked questions below, please check to see if your question has already been answered BEFORE posting!

Those in attendance:

ImaCarrot
JCirri
EmptySet
HylianHero

We also ran into singemfrc, so he'll probably answer some questions too.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q.Did you get to see all four of the Metallica skins?

A.No, the Metallica characters were not available to choose in quickplay, just the standard characters we all know and love. Whenever a Metallica song was played, the characters were used automatically.

Q.How often were purple notes used?

A.Our general impression is that they were used more sparingly than in World Tour. Take that with a grain of salt however, we didn't get to play every song and we didn't count how many there were either.

Q.How are the career tiers arranged?

A.There aren't tiers in quickplay at all. Like WT, it just straight up lists all the songs according to title, band, or "career order", which I guess is the loose representation of how difficult a song is. Career is handled a bit differently this game. Like was said in the wiki, For Whom the Bell Tolls is the first song in the game. There is some other Metallica song in the first tier as well (I *think* it's The Unforgiven, but don't call me on it), and that's it. After you earn 6 stars between the two songs, the next tier opens up. This tier has...4? songs: two Metallica songs and two non-Metallica songs. After you get 6 stars between these four songs, another setlist opens up that has about 10 songs in it. 6 stars between these ten songs unlocks the next setlist, which presumably has more, but we didn't get time to actually see beyond that. If I had to guess, I'd estimate that there's about six or seven tiers, but that is really just a complete guess based on the increase in number of songs. No bonus songs from what I saw.

Q.Is One's solo still ascending Trips?

A.Nope, it is descending this time.

Q.Can you play Expert+ with another drum kit? (The Rock Band kit, for example)

A.Yes, it seems that you can play the game with any kit you like. Exper+ will not be dumbed down in anyway if you don't have a second pedal inserted, pad notes will still be 'compressed' if you are using a 4 pad kit instead of a 5 pad kit though.

Q.Will Death Magnetic DLC have Expert+?

A.While we didn't actually play any of them, the setlist does in fact say that all Death Magnetic songs have expert+ EXCEPT for The Unforgiven III.

Q.Can you turn off the slide sections? (Purple string notes)

A.We didn't see an option to do so and we highly doubt that you would be able too.

Q.Are the vocals "fixed"?

A.If by fixed you mean more like Rock Band, then yes. It is immensely easier to get 100% on vocals now.

Q.What is the hardest song in the game?

A.Neversoft tells us that War Ensemble is the hardest for all instruments. After playing, some of us are split and think Dyers Eve is harder on some instruments like Guitar.

Q.On the double bass, can you press down one pedal while the other pedal is still pressed down and it still activate?

A.Yes, you can have one pressed down already and still use the other one.

Q.Are all songs in game masters?

A.Yes, we believe that they are.

Q.Do any of the past members make an appearance? (Cliff Burton, Dave Mustaine... etc.)

A.No.

Q.Can you use the GH:M pedal with the RB kit?

A.Not without modifications.

Q.Which will be harder on Expert +, Dyer's Eve or War Ensemble?

A.We didn't have a top-notch drummer there to give opinion and none of us could pass it solo. I'll just go on to say that they are both really fucking hard.

Q.Is Metallica going to send a signed guitar to the first person to fc the game?

A.Sure thing! You go ahead and do that!

Q.Do freeform sections in vocals return?

A.You bet your sweet ass they do! They don't appear to have been changed, so look forward to the official leaderboards being useless!

Q.Did HylianHero really get sent to the kids table?

A.Yep, they pulled him out when they were checking IDs to verify that could hit up the open bar. The room he got sent too even had Wiis in it! He did get to return to the adults table soon after though, only to get harassed every 5 minutes to make sure he wasn't drinking.

Q.I love Metallica and I love Guitar Hero, is this game gonna be a must buy for me?

A.I'd say yes. The game is a big improvement over GH:Aerosmith and the song selection is stellar if you are a fan of that kind of music.

**tooPrime** · Joined: 23 Jun 2008 Posts: 181

Awesome. This game is shaping out great. If all of Neversoft's games are excellent, who cares if 5 come out a year?

That said the article was a little whiny. What did you think Expert + was going to be?

**ImaCarrot** · Joined: 06 Mar 2006 Posts: 2687

Let me reiterate the nature of a Q&A thread.

You guys ask questions, we answer them.

Try to keep general comments on the game in the general GH:M thread here.

Thanks!
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Rhythm Authors LLC
www.rhythmauthors.com
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Level Designer at Ubisoft Studio SF

**metallidevils** · Joined: 17 Jun 2008 Posts: 60

did you get to see all 4 metallica skins? If so, what were they? kirk referred to one as 'how we look in the movies', and 4th one that was kept a secret.

**CoHPlaya** · Joined: 16 Oct 2007 Posts: 122

Was there tons of purple notes, or were they limited?

**ImaCarrot** · Joined: 06 Mar 2006 Posts: 2687

**HylianHero** · Joined: 22 Feb 2006 Posts: 4673 Location: Santa Cruz, CA

**titans77** · Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2009 5:20 pm Post subject:

I know how to pass the tiers (certain amount of stars per tier) but about how many songs are in each tier? how many tiers? bonus songs?
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Sellagerg wrote:

Jaziek wrote:

Kiyrugoji in response to the heroin hero t-shirt dilema wrote:

Maybe it's not what we all think... maybe he just wants a Pepsi.

just one pepsi.

and she wouldn't give it to him

**HylianHero** · Joined: 22 Feb 2006 Posts: 4673 Location: Santa Cruz, CA

**cobainage1994** · Joined: 14 Jun 2006 Posts: 2020 Location: Whitewater , WI

Is One's solo still ascending Trips?

**HylianHero** · Joined: 22 Feb 2006 Posts: 4673 Location: Santa Cruz, CA

**HylianHero** · Joined: 22 Feb 2006 Posts: 4673 Location: Santa Cruz, CA

**JCirri** · Joined: 04 Feb 2006 Posts: 4576

Emptyset would be the one to answer that in more detail since he spent a good deal in practice mode on it. But from what I heard, the solo on Expert is now descending triplets, and (very oddly) both descending and later transitioning to ascending on Hard.
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**Xenolord** · Joined: 09 Oct 2007 Posts: 60

On the article it says "All Nightmare Long" will be expert+ enabled. Is that the DLC version of the song or the PS2 version that is comming on disc?

**HylianHero** · Joined: 22 Feb 2006 Posts: 4673 Location: Santa Cruz, CA