With its authentic, professional-grade electronic drum pads and cymbals that can be rearranged to the drummer’s every whim, even a casual Rock Band player will find his or her attention seized by the sheer spectacle of the Drum Rocker. But is it the kit for you?

The answer is simple! Just take our three-step quiz:

1. If you don’t own a Rock Band game: Please don’t waste another second living under that rock. Kindly redirect your browser here and pick up the Rock Band 1 bundle along with Rock Band 2 and the AC/DC Live Track Pack for a mere $80. Those Rock Band 1 drums will get you acquainted with the basics.
2. If you’re a light to moderate Rock Band or Guitar Hero player: You’re better served spending your money on expanding your song or instrument library in a less extravagant fashion. There’s not a single expert drum song that can’t be passed on the stock Rock Band or Guitar Hero drum set, so don’t panic.
3. If you’re a super-big Rock Band geek with naïve aspirations of learning how to play a real drum kit (kind of like Neil Peart but without the tragic history and freaky Objectivist lyrics): Oh thank goodness. I’m not alone. You should keep reading this article.

If piecing together your dinky little Rock Band drum controller was a pain, assembling your Drum Rocker will feel like the aftermath of a debilitating Ikea binge. With seven tubes, six drums, dozens of screws and one controller to attach and fine-tune to your liking, building a Drum Rocker is nothing short of an afternoon project. Fortunately, the folks at ION were courteous enough to include a simple wrench for tightening and loosening the myriad screws that are attached to the drum kit’s various components. While a little frustrating at first, it eventually proves to be a pretty elegant solution; the screws keep things from moving around, but individual components can easily be manipulated by loosening a wing nut or a screw or two.

Once everything is assembled, the drum kit is ready to be plugged in and thrashed upon to your heart’s content. However, most drummers will probably experience a frustrating learning curve in adapting from Harmonix’s stock drum kit to the larger, flexible design of the Drum Rocker. The cymbals in particular can be challenging to learn how to calibrate and play well, but they seem to take a little breaking-in before they respond to reasonably light hits. Even so, here’s a brief tip: Consider tightening the large plastic screws on top of each cymbal until they can’t turn any further (but don’t snap anything!), and then loosen them by about a quarter-turn counterclockwise. Unlike on a real drum kit, electronic cymbals aren’t meant to bounce or rock back-and-forth on their supports.

The amount of patience and persistence the Drum Rocker demands in its assembly and arrangement stage is more than a little off-putting. If the price tag wasn’t enough to ward off most potential buyers, the sheer amount of trial-and-error involved in arriving at the perfect drum setup will frustrate all but the most dedicated. But if you’re willing to stick it out and take the time to tweak the kit a few dozen times, the payoff is tremendous. All the equipment is relentlessly durable and highly reliable; you won’t notice any dropped hits or accidental double-hits while playing a well-assembled Drum Rocker. For the score-minded player, this means you’ll probably see a significant increase in song performance in the long run. But for the Rock Band lover with dreams of becoming a master of a real drum kit, the Drum Rocker is an absolute thrill to play.

A standard Rock Band kit will teach you the basics of arm-leg coordination and how to keep a beat, but the Drum Rocker is a massive leap closer to the real deal. Drums can easily be placed in a realistic fashion, which means the snare can rest between your legs and the hi-hat, ride and/or crash cymbals (the Drum Rocker unfortunately only comes with two of three possible cymbals) can be positioned at all manner of angles and heights. It teaches you to think of drumming in a three-dimensional space rather than a row of identical practice pads, which helped immensely when I began transitioning over to learning how to play a real drum kit.

One last note: The Drum Rocker comes with an all-metal kick pedal that’s hefty, solid and durable. There’s just one problem — it doesn’t feel a thing like a real kick pedal. For the player whose drumming experience is solely confined to Rock Band or Guitar Hero, you probably won’t notice or care. After all, it’s perfectly capable of pulling off double-and-triple hits with ease after you spend a little time recalibrating your legs. But for players craving a bit more feedback, authenticity and precision, there’s no substitute for the Rock Pedal. But that’s a whole other major investment, so we’ll save that debate for a future review.

Recommended for:

• Aspiring drummers looking for a bridge between Rock Band and Real-Life Band
• Rock Band aficionados who pop the game disc in every day to download the latest songs and compete for scores among their friends

Not Recommended for:

• Anyone with anything less than a burning passion for drumming in Rock Band
• Guitar Hero fans seeking a more realistic drum kit; although the Drum Rocker works with Guitar Hero World Tour and its spinoffs, it only presents notes on the simplified four-note track instead of Guitar Hero’s default five-note track, making the cymbals almost redundant
• Would-be drummers looking for a solid first kit; although it’s relatively affordable, a drum brain is separate and similarly expensive. If you’re not a Rock Band fan as well, you’d be better off looking elsewhere.

Read our policy on reviews here.

At long last, we’re ready to unveil the latest branch of the Silicon Sasquatch media empire: The Silicon Sasquatch Podcast! Or, as I’ve taken to calling it, the SquatchCast. Each episode seeks to address one major theme or issue related to video games. Our mission is to deliver a podcast that’s engaging, thought-provoking and entertaining.

What you shouldn’t expect from the podcast:

1. Everybody being drunk
2. Fart noises
3. Long, rambling discussions about what games everyone is playing

This week’s episode is titled The Day the Music Died: Has the rhythm game bubble finally burst? We discuss the future of big-name franchises like Guitar Hero and Rock Band and debate whether the writing’s on the wall or they’re just warming up.

We’re looking to deliver new episodes on a weekly basis, so be sure to subscribe with your RSS or podcast aggregator of your choice!

Download the first episode here!

Unassuming box art adorns the latest Guitar Hero reprisal. Are we due for some pleasant surprises, or is what we're seeing just what we'll get this September?

I always feel a little guilty for chastising Neversoft’s decisions in guiding the Guitar Hero franchise since it picked up the reins in 2007. It’s almost certain the studio has been under a lot of pressure for years from publisher Activision’s growing dependence on expanding and exploiting franchises at a fever pitch — just look at the decline in quality as the Tony Hawk franchise relentlessly iterated upon itself.

So try to imagine how Neversoft’s staff must have felt when Activision dumped what was arguably the biggest name in gaming fresh into its lap and demanded the biggest, best sequel to be built from scratch in less than a year. That’s probably more or less what happened when Harmonix and Activision/Red Octane parted ways in late 2006.

That’s no mean feat, especially when you consider that Neversoft also had to compete against the Guitar Hero series’ originator, Harmonix, and its debut of the genre-expanding Rock Band franchise. Yet despite better name recognition, higher sales numbers and a marketing campaign to rival MTV/Harmonix’s own, it all comes down to this: Neversoft’s Guitar Hero games just aren’t as good as the Guitar Heros and Rock Bands that Harmonix put out.

Guitar Hero 5 seeks to make the experience more flexible, allowing any combination of instruments to play at a time. And if you're throwing a party, guests will be able to jump in and out of songs at any time without worrying about winning or losing.

But as another year passes, another major Guitar Hero release looms on the near horizon. And unlike Guitar Hero III and Guitar Hero World Tour, which both changed up the game’s formula significantly, the fifth entry appears to be playing it safe. The Genericaster guitar features a few small modifications — mostly cosmetic — over last year’s Guitar Hero World Tour guitar controller, but nothing else has changed.

Believe it or not, this gives me hope for the series. If there’s one thing Rock Band has unquestionably done better than Guitar Hero, it’s how it managed to truly build a gaming platform out of a single game. The staggering selection of downloadable songs (more than 600 now) that can be played in either Rock Band 1 or 2, coupled with the ability to export the Rock Band 1 disc’s songs into Rock Band 2, mean players know their investment in hardware and additional songs is an enduring one.

Neversoft never took that position before. To date, every Guitar Hero game’s downloadable songs (with the exception of Metallica’s Death Magnetic album) can only be played on its own respective game. A number of reasons have been given to justify the limited functionality: Major engine changes between games, the introduction of other instruments and purchasing additional licensing rights, to name a few. But this time around, things are looking awfully conservative on the hardware front, which seems to indicate that Neversoft is eager to give this latest Guitar Hero game some serious legs.

I’d be shocked if Guitar Hero 5 didn’t include cross-compatibility with Guitar Hero World Tour’s DLC and/or a song export feature for Guitar Hero World Tour. But what if Guitar Hero Metallica and Guitar Hero Smash Hits — both built on the GHWT engine — also exported to GH5? Then you’d be looking at an established platform with hundreds of available songs that truly rivals Harmonix’s accomplishments.

With Guitar Hero 5 due out September 1st, the answers can’t be too far off.

Guitar Hero 5 is coming and it has songs (surprise!), free-to-play MMO Free Realms has racked up quite the player base in its first few weeks of existence, Valve’s sneaky with its surprises as usual, and Mass Effect 2 footage is available for your viewing pleasure.

Not Guitar Hero 5–but close enough

Though the game has been known about for a while now, Activision today tossed out a few official scraps of details on the upcoming Guitar Hero 5. Players will be able to tackle the game’s tracks with any instrument combination they see fit. Want to sing through a song with three other friends all using microphones? Go ahead.

It’s an interesting mechanic to put into a rhythm game–certainly one that isn’t “authentic” as far real bands go (though, yes, these games aren’t meant to be taken literally). And while we’ve been somewhat biased in favor of Harmonix’s Rock Band titles (or, at least Nick and Doug have), I personally find the gameplay freedom Neversoft’s offering to be great. Add-in the beginnings of a solid-looking track list and the new instant difficulty/instrument swapping, and the next Guitar Hero game might turn out to be one actually worthy of the franchise’s name.

You'd certainly be happy too if you were SOE

Free Realms, Sony Online Entertainment’s recently released free-to-play MMO, has already achieved 1,000,000 registered player accounts in under three weeks’ time. The “free” concept might tarnish these numbers a bit considering the zero-cost entry level for gamers to go and be wizards, but it’s still an impressive amount of people willing to try out an American company’s take on the international concept of micro-transaction gameplay. Also, there’s a trading card game within the MMO. I almost feel compelled to try it now.

You are encouraged to fear Mann Co., but that fear comes with the gentle and stern guidance of a near-naked Australian

Though we already mentioned Valve’s impending Team Fortress 2 update, they’re not quite done yet: The next Team Fortress 2 serving of additional content will also be a…gasp…Spy-oriented extravaganza! You have to love the design team’s miniature poster announcements, with their clever wording and immersion into the strange world of TF2′s 1960s super villain culture. Plus, who doesn’t get a kick out of Mann Co.’s CEO (and Australian), Saxton Hale. The name and trouser-shorts simultaneously scream manliness.

And finally, a closing treat for you: BioWare today released a dual-purpose teaser and pre-E3 video for Mass Effect 2. What else can I say but “Wow.”

Enjoy, and have a great weekend. We’ll be posting some great stuff over this weekend and throughout next week, so keep coming back for more!

Gunnin' for that #1 spot: Sales of Call of Duty: World at War helped Activision post earnings of nearly $1 billion this past year, the company announced today. Guitar Hero and World of Warcraft were also named as leading Activision-Blizzard franchises.

Just a couple of days ago, Electronic Arts announced its quarterly and yearly financial statement; today,  Activision followed that up with its own release, and the returns are very impressive. Activision-Blizzard posted a $981 million net revenue in the first quarter of this year — no, that’s not a yearly figure. That beats the publishing giant’s own projections for the quarter by more than $100 million, and has caused the company to raise its revenue expectations for the 2009 calendar year to $4.3 billion.

“Our better-than-expected first quarter results were driven by strong global consumer response to the Call of Duty and Guitar Hero franchises and Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft, despite challenging economic times,” Activision CEO Robert Kotick said.

Of course, as happens from time to time, some games that were rumored to exist were confirmed in the financial release. Guitar Hero 5, Band Hero, and DJ Hero were all confirmed in the report, and Guitar Hero: Van Halen was made official later in the day. GH5 is a follow up to 2008′s Guitar Hero: World Tour and 2009′s Guitar Hero: Metallica (our review of which is here.) Band Hero is going to be family friendly, and DJ Hero will feature hip-hop, R&B, electronic, techno, and dance music and a turntable peripheral.

In non-music-game-related Activision news, during the earnings conference call, word leaked out (repoted by Kotaku) that details on the next entry in the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater franchise may be coming at next month’s E3 convention. One of Activision’s older cash cows, THPS went underground (as opposed to Underground) last year as developer Neversoft focused on Guitar Hero games. Looks like EA’s Skate series may have some competition once again.

Nintendo's Wii Fit helped the company sell 26 million Wii systems worldwide last year, rocketing the little white waggle-tastic console to the 50 million units sold mark.

Meanwhile, Nintendo continues to print money. They also released financial numbers today, and they are ludicrous – GameSpot reports $2.8 billion in net revenue and $6 billion in operating profit in the last year, more than $18 billion in total sales worldwide, and a total rise of 8.5 percent over the numbers Nintendo turned over last year.

Even crazier is the amount of consoles sold to fuel those numbers: 26 million Wii consoles sold worldwide, which puts the system above 50 million sold in its lifetime, and 31 million DS units sold, lifting the handheld above the 100-million mark. Even though Nintendo gets the short end of the stick from many jilted hardcore gamers, it’s clear their bottom line is hardly hurting because of that.

We mentioned earlier in the week the anticipation for the newest piece of Fallout 3 DLC, Broken Steel, but it seems that Bethesda’s add-on fell on its face upon launch – Xbox 360 gamers were having problems with the achievements, and PC gamers couldn’t even install the DLC whatsoever. Apparently that has been fixed, with threads in the Fallout 3 forums saying that both issues have been resolved. Hopefully no problems will beset our brave editor Aaron Thayer as he tackles the Fallout 3 DLC suite this weekend.

Despite the title, Daniel Benmergui's Flash game "Today I Die" really isn't all that sad of a game.

Lastly, a little indie gaming to lighten the mood after all that financial talk. “Today I Die,” a simple yet very moving poetic flash game, has been released by creator Daniel Benmurgi, who previously made “I Wish I Were The Moon” and “Storyteller.” We found this game via Kotaku, and will share the same hint that they suggested: Try the jellyfish.

Coming tomorrow is our hands-on overview of the new Nintendo DSi system. To be clear, the purpose of an overview is to be less like a review–instead of making recommendations on the overall value of the product, we’re simply providing our readership with an introduction to it. We’ll still offer our crystal-clear opinions backed-up with facts, but the final purchasing decision is up to you, as always. Also on the way tomorrow is a review of Xbox Live Arcade title Galaga Legions.

Friday we’ll be reviewing the new Left 4 Dead DLC pack with its hectic and horrific Survival Mode. Can we last more than two minutes? Doubtful.

Next Tuesday’s big post is a “cooperative” review of Resident Evil 5 between Nick and me. This review has been a long time coming, and we look forward to adding our special co-op-centric commentary into the structure of our usual, trusty reviews.

Now, onto the news…and some awesome poster art.

Familiar, no?

Thank you, ThinkGeek, for beating a very dead horse: You can (for now) purchase brand-spanking-new, unopened Dreamcast consoles for $99 from ThinkGeek.com’s online store. What amazes me the most is that the company was able to track down enough “new” consoles to provide a slot on their virtual shelves, as Sega supposedly sold through its remaining stock of refurbished units through its Sega Direct store. Official production of the console stopped in March of 2001, and as such new console eBay prices today hover near ThinkGeek’s. Clearly, paying a flat rate premium for a sealed console is better than getting it used. Luckily for me, my Dreamcast is still kicking, though my rose-colored glasses didn’t help much when I tried playing through Shenmue again last year: I shut the game off after 35 minutes. However, in my bizarro-world reality, Phantasy Star Online is still one of the best MMOs ever made, so take that as you will. I’ll admit that the system was ahead of its time, though it still doesn’t give credence to those damned VMU Chaos–I’m looking at you, Sonic Adventure.

One Disc to Rule Them All

In an unexpected gesture of semi-goodwill, Warner Bros. is letting owners of their HD-DVD titles to trade-up to Blu-ray for $4.95 per title, and only $6.95 shipping per entire order. Though only available in the U.S. and Peurto Rico, it’s still a very cool move on the company’s part. Maybe other companies who dabbled in the HD-DVD side of the most recent war of the formats will follow suit. Check out the full article for details here, and, if interested, go to the official trade-in site here. 1UP raises a devious point: Could savvy people nab cheap HD-DVDs to then upgrade for a total cost that would still be less than the full price of most Blu-ray titles? Why yes, people could.

Yelling = Rock n' Roll

Continuing our unintentional habit of covering rhythm-based games, an interesting news piece on Gamasutra reports that according to Cowen Group analyst Doug Creutz, despite a probable decline in overall sales for music games in 2009, the Guitar Hero franchise will perform better than Rock Band titles. The article amounts to the following: Due to Harmonix’s focus on The Beatles: Rock Band instead of a flagship, Rock Band 3 type of title, the major Guitar Hero title this year (assuming it’s a World Tour 2 or something along those lines) will be in a better position to encourage sales than a gamble like a Beatles-only title with a high price entry point. Specifically:

It’s doubtful, according to Creutz, that the upcoming Beatles-themed Rock Band release will make the same kind of impact as another major franchise release. And the high price point — $250 — of the special edition ‘could put a cap on peripheral sales.’

– Excerpt from “Analyst: Guitar Hero To Lead 2009 Band Game Wars,” by Leigh Alexander

We here at The Silicon Sasquatch are skeptical about this presumption, and not because two of our writers are Rock Band fanboys. It’s anyone’s guess how well The Beatles: Rock Band will do, but the sheer brand power of a Beatles music game could possibly knock sales right out of the park. However, as I mentioned to Nick, it’s a different generation of gamers today and it surprises the both of us how many among our peers just don’t like The Beatles. Maybe, and it sounds strange to say this, the game will be too niche to make a big impact on the NPD lists.

The stalwart, Sandvich-loving savior of Socialism

Now enjoy some Shepard Fairey-inspired, Obama-themed gaming posters, courtesy of GamesRadar. Regardless of political affiliations, these are very neat and extremely high-def. Our favorite is definitely Mr. “Sandvich” himself, as seen above.

[viddler id=72981230&w=545&h=349]

On the one hand, Guitar Hero: Smash Hits is reviving some of the best songs with full-band bravado from the earlier, better days of Guitar Hero. Ozzy Osbourne’s Bark at the Moon is getting its due. So is Killer Queen, and Free Bird, and Carry On Wayward Son…which was already in Rock Band 2, and…Through the Fire and Flames?

Yep. It’s Neversoft.

Bioshock 2 footage emerged from the depths. While it’s far too early to make any judgment calls on the game, it’s safe to say the sequel perfectly retains the look and feel of the landmark original game. Whether that’ll ultimately be to its detriment or benefit is, at this point, anyone’s guess.

Meet Ezio Auditore de Firenze, Desmond's next nightmare-bed buddy

The slow trickle of Assassin’s Creed 2 details has accelerated. Just earlier this week, Ubisoft launched a teaser site for Assassin’s Creed 2, complete with a clever webcam metagame that revealed images of the game’s new protagonist. Ezio Auditore de Firenze, a Florentine nobleman in the year 1476, is another one of Desmond’s ancestors and presumably the next persona he’ll pull a Being John Malkovich on in the sequel.

The Ecstasy of Gold

When the biggest name in music gaming dedicates an entire game to the most popular thrash metal band of all time, there’s not much need for introductions. (After all, we just covered the demo a couple weeks ago!) Just about everyone with a pulse has played one of the billions of Guitar Hero games by now, and Metallica has been an institution in popular music for more than 25 years. Say what you will about the Grammy Awards, but you don’t win nine of them without developing a sizable following.

Remember, this is the second time Neversoft has tapped a musical juggernaut to star in a game. However, Guitar Hero: Metallica comes a year after Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, and it benefits from being built on top of the newer Guitar Hero World Tour engine. While Neversoft demonstrates that it is capable of improving upon past failures — and really, this is the best Guitar Hero game they’ve made yet — this latest Guitar Hero iteration, just like every Neversoft-developed game in the franchise, is packed with ambition but stunted in delivery.

Just like any other creative work, a game should ultimately be judged on its own merits — how it plays, whether it’s any fun, and so on. But before I can begin to offer my personal impressions and opinion on Guitar Hero: Metallica, it’s absolutely essential to recognize the critical and financial success of both Guitar Hero and Metallica. With the Guitar Hero franchise boasting sales at well over $1bn and five of Metallica’s new releases shooting immediately into the #1 Billboard spot, there’s just no denying their success. A hell of a lot of people just eat these brands up.

Give Me Fuel, Give Me Fire

For better or worse, Guitar Hero: Metallica contains the same gameplay elements of its predecessor, Guitar Hero World Tour. Strumming on top of sustain notes, open notes on the bass, the often-infuriating tapping/sliding mechanic — they’re all back, and they’re all functionally identical. Really, the only significant changes reside in the game’s interface and the drum kit.

Full-band gameplay. Image courtesy of Destructoid.

The folks at Neversoft took a couple ideas from series-founder Harmonix in the user interface category, and the results are largely pleasing. In addition to the star power meter and score/note streak counters, Guitar Hero: Metallica features a star counter. Stars offer a general analysis of how well you performed, on a scale of one to five stars. This has been the standard scoring mechanism since the first Guitar Hero, and Rock Band 1 and 2 have both featured a star meter that builds as your score increases as you play a song. It’s a nice indicator of general song performance, and it complements the more hardcore-oriented streak counter — a Neversoft innovation for the series — very nicely.

Those who were giddy beyond expression at the announcement of Guitar Hero: Metallica and rushed out to pre-order the game from Gamestop were rewarded with an additional kick drum pedal and a connector to hook it up to their existing World Tour kit. Yes, double-bass drumming has finally come to rhythm gaming in the form of Expert + difficulty. Basically, it’s the same as Expert, except every single kick pedal note is charted. See all those purple bars in the middle column in the picture above? They indicate bass drum hits. Expert + is definitely not for the faint of heart.

While wholly unnecessary and out of place in most genres of music, having two bass pedals feels right at home in a game that features metal music almost exclusively. Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich is infamous for his swift, thundering beats, which proved too difficult for even the hardest of the hardcore in Rock Band and Guitar Hero. Previously, both games had opted to include a reduced number of bass notes to compensate for their decision to include one foot pedal with their drum kits — and to prevent countless potentially hilarious leg injuries. However, Neversoft saw this game as a chance to offer more authentic drum charting, and it ends up being a cool option for challenge-seekers.

Nothing Else Matters

Since adopting the Guitar Hero series, Neversoft has “hardened” the image of the game. While to some this is an improvement, to me it looks like a pale imitation of its former glory. Clever character designs with subtle real-life inspirations became blatant, hyper-sexualized stereotypes; witty loading screen quips were replaced by smarmy, idiotic would-be rockisms; the user interface went from functional to baffling (six lights are used to represent the four quarters of the star power meter…and only three are initially visible. Really, guys?)

Despite modest improvements over time, the interface still lags significantly behind the sleek, hip and — most importantly — legible Rock Band presentation. The set list is almost as horrendously cluttered and hard-to-read as World Tour’s. Customizing musicians, logos and tattoos just isn’t as inspired or intuitive as in Rock Band, and the whole customization element comes off as tacked-on. It’s true that this entire feature set was copied and pasted from World Tour, but the same criticism applied then as well. In all, the presentation can be described like the majority of the features in Guitar Hero: wide-ranging, but barely passable.

But it’s not all bad. In fact, Neversoft has done a first-rate job of bringing the band members of Metallica to life. The band members participated in motion capture sessions specifically for the game, and the detail is leaps and bounds better than the animations in Guitar Hero: Aerosmith. Animations are fluid and convincing, and lead singer James Hetfield’s vocals are punctuated with flecks of spit and accordingly violent or subtle movements depending on the energy of the song. I even laughed when the virtual Hetfield closed one eye and glared menacingly at the camera while singing “sleep with one eye open/clutching your pillow tight.” Hetfield even has an animation for swapping guitars between songs during the game’s introductory sequence, which deserves praise for setting the game’s tone flawlessly by having the band enter the stage to Ennio Morricone’s “The Ecstasy of Gold” from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, and immediately thrusts the player into the role of playing as Metallica right off the bat. For a virtual recreation of a band, Neversoft really did an impressive job bringing Metallica to life.

…And Justice For All

It’s a shame, then, that the multiplayer component seems so stripped of energy. Guitar Hero World Tour was plagued with a host of deficiencies when it comes to playing over the Internet: matchmaking was a grueling, interminable process that often resulted in no games being found, particularly for full band play; song choices were determined by random rotation, rather than the host choosing first; difficulty levels MUST be chosen before matchmaking begins, not during song selection, and picking between guitar and bass is a guessing game at best. All these poor design choices added up to an excruciating online experience that was handled much more gracefully in Rock Band, which came out nearly 12 months prior. Surely Neversoft had enough time between March 2009 and November 2008 to at least create a carbon copy of Rock Band’s online matchmaking, or maybe even create a full band career mode that’s playable online?

Nope. Guitar Hero: Metallica features the exact same multiplayer component, complete with all the same crippling problems as before. Very few of the game’s reviews I’ve read even mention the multiplayer component at all, and none with any real detail, so let me do you a favor and be as blunt as possible: Do not get this game with the expectation of having any fun with its online modes.

Finally, there are a few bonus features that are great in principle but lacking in execution. To be fair, some inclusions are excellent. For instance, every song has viewable lyrics that can be read while listening to the track, and the Metallica songs even include a feature called Metallifacts. If you remember Pop-Up Video from the ’90s, you’ll love this feature…at first. Metallifacts consists of the game playing itself in the background while song-specific factoids pop up every so often. It’s great at first, until you start to see the same fact again…and again. Metallica’s songs are lengthy, sure, but when a band has such a strong following and a quarter of a century of history, this feature sure could have been fleshed out more fully. The included videos shot at live performances give a cool, real-world perspective on the band, but they’re going to appeal to Metallica fans only.

And really, that’s the truth about this game. Unless you’re a hardcore Guitar Hero fan or a hardcore Metallica fan, you’re not going to find much to keep coming back to in Guitar Hero: Metallica. It’s definitely worth a rental for anyone looking for a solid challenge, but with a mostly lacking array of supporting artists (Lynyrd Skynyrd and Queen are real standout additions, however) and very little potential longevity through online play or DLC, this is a game that’s worth $60 to only the most dedicated of fans.

Recommended for:

• Metallica fans
• Rhythm game devotees who crave long, noodling solos, heavy bass lines and hard-hitting drum beats

Not Recommended for:

• Anyone expecting a functional set of multiplayer modes — matchmaking is just as broken as in Guitar Hero World Tour, and many of the design choices are baffling and frustrating
• Gamers in search of a fun, accessible game to have friends over to play
• Consumers who expect budget-conscious features like exportable songs and cross-compatibility of downloadable songs with Guitar Hero World Tour
• Gamers expecting the immense longevity of a game like Rock Band 2 — there’s no new content on the horizon for GH:M

Read our policy on reviews here.