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Heavy Metal and Video Games
With Metallica going to shake the country in Abu Dhabi as we speak, personally, I won’t be attending the concert (and I know I’ll regret it), but as an homage to the legendary band, I thought it would be a great time to look at the great musical genre and how it goes hand in hand with video games. I will not talk about games with heavy metal in their soundtrack (well… mostly), but will be talking about video games that have heavy metal’s culture as a part of the aesthetic.
There was a time where I wanted an RPG where all the heavy metal legends starred in and used guitars (using the guitar hero guitars) to perform music that will kill their enemies and cast spells in solos. All my hopes for such an idea went down the drain when music games (guitar hero and rock band at the time) got terminated (rock band is in hiatus as far as I understand it). 
The closest I ever got to get my hands was in fact Brutal Legend. While it wasn’t exactly what I hoped for, it was a cherished offering nonetheless. Brutal Legend was a fairly flawed game, but it was a very entertaining game that played the right strings in my heart to love the game. I found it quite depressing to know it didn’t sell well and it saddened me that the biggest heavy metal fans I’ve ever known (who do happen to play video games) never heard of it. It had a lot for any lover of heavy metal to enjoy, heavy metal stars as part of the story, a great soundtrack, and everything you could possibly imagine being in a heavy metal adventure. 
That wasn’t the start of all this thought, there have been many heavy metal themed games in the past. Barely any of them have been “heavy metal adventures”, take Rock ‘n’ Roll Racing as an example. Sure, it had “rock and roll” in the name and George Thorogood’s “Bad To The Bone” as title music, but it still had a lot of that heavy metal cyberpunk setting in its core, it even had a soundtrack that included Black Sabbath and Deep Purple which was something was a bit of a surprise back in the day. 
Rock ‘n’ Roll had a Playstation One sequel that lacked the spirit and the music and didn’t end up as well either.
Metallica had a game at one point, it was was suppose to be released for PS2, Gamecube and GBA, but that never found itself anywhere near release beyond an awful teaser trailer that showed nothing. However it had some really interesting concept artwork so MAYBE it would have been something.
Full Throttle was another worthy listing, it was a point and click adventure that Tim Schafer (one of the main people on Brutal Legend) worked on at the time when the genre was on its dying legs. Full Throttle had you playing a biker gang leader that finds himself involved in a conspiracy of a murdered motorcycle company founder. While the game had more of a biker “on the road” setting but the game’s soundtrack was fitting and included the amazing “Legacy” by The Gone Jackals.
Let’s not forget Iron Maiden’s Ed Hunter which was a rail shooter on the PC that involved locations from several covers from previous Iron Maiden covers, it had pre-rendered 3D art style which was fairly dated even at the time (1999), but in the end it was there as fan service for Iron Maiden fans since it was on a second disc that was offered for free along side the album. Other notable features: Nevan (Electric guitar weapon) – Devil May Cry 3 (PS2): 
Involvement of Sex Machineguns (Japanese Heavy Metal Band) – Heavy Metal Thunder (PS2 – Japan Only):
Music by Halford, Megadeth, W.A.S.P., Dust to Dust and Corrosion to Conformity – Heavy Metal GeoMatrix (Dreamcast):
Use of pose in title screen similar to Manowar’s ”Kings of Metal” albume cover – Turrican (C64):
