Perhaps the most promising thing about Guitar Hero Metallica isn't Metallica themselves, but the slew of accompanying artists that are also appearing in the game. One of those is Slayer. And getting Slayer was tough.
Despite "Raining Blood" already making an appearance in the series, courtesy of Guitar Hero III, Metallica drummer/public spokeshole Lars Ulrich has told Game Informer magazine:
I'm super psyched we got Slayer in there. Slayer's got to be part of any heavy metal video game. There had been some issues with their lyrics. That gets into a whole slew of stuff like, 'Microsoft won't do it if this lyrical content is in there.' There's all this bullshit you have to deal with, but we stood up for Slayer, and we finally got Slayer cleared like a week ago.
Glad this is both coming up, and getting sorted out, now. Many of the world's finest rock/metal songs have naughty words in them (an issue now because the game now uses both master recordings and on-screen lyrics), so hopefully more worthy, naughty bands can be included in the future, even if they don't have angry little European men to lean on multinational corporations.
Metallica: getting Slayer into Guitar Hero was a challenge [Game Informer, via Opposable Thumbs] [Image]