I am totally sure that reader Casper B. (sorry, dear. Facebook doesn't have a Save Chat History function, so I lost your username. hehe) would be glad to hear about this update on Guitar Hero Metallica (PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, PS2). Thanks to Neversoft's GH Metallica Lead Designer Alan Flores, we've got new details about the much-awaited Metal-tastic installment for the game-music franchise.

Now, porting art from one medium to another is a very tenuous task (just see how much of a hit or miss it's been for game-movie, book-movie adaptations). You gotta make sure you give justice to the original. That's why it's such a relief to find out that the folks working on GH Metallica are true fans themselves. At least they know what fans would want to see in the game, cos, hey, they are those fans.

Alan Flores' Metallica Vintage Collection -- and that's not all of it.
Told ya he's a fan.

Some exciting things to watch out for. Alan Flores is promising us "absolutely amazing opening acts" - Slayer is there, too - great character models and venues, complete with pyros, lifelike animations, and Metallica-themed Pushead UI.

More exciting than those, however, is the inclusion of rare and actual live footage of the band playing in concerts. Apart from that, they've also put in a Metallifacts feature, where you can view some sort of DVD commentary where "the song will play back sans notetrack and you get information in a text box about the song that's playing."

Sweet information! And then, it's also gonna give you juicy trivia about the band and their music, such as the story behind Lynyrd Skynyrd and Bob Seger being there, or what the song is about and how they wrote it, etc. Total Metallica fanboyism in other words.

Here's a few of those trivia that Alan shared with us, just to tease your musicbuds (interestingly intelligent stuff, too):

• The Diamond Head's "Am I Evil" intro is based on Gustav Holst's "Mars" from "The Planet Suite Op. 32"
• Mastodon's "Leviathan" album is based on "Moby Dick"
• Metallica's "For Whom the Bell Tolls" is based on the Hemingway novel

See? Who said Metalheads just use their heads for headbanging? Oh, and for those of you wishing that there be a second bass drum pedal so you can play those double bass tracks, not to worry, they've got it all covered even before you asked for it.

That's it for now, but we're sure there'll be more cool stuff to know about Guitar Hero Metallica, so just keep it locked here. Game comes out in Spring.

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Related Guitar Hero Metallica Articles:

• Guitar Hero: Metallica full tracklist revealed
• Additional Guitar Hero: Metallica tracks revealed by ESRB