Metallica to Ride the Lightning March 29

While my personal music tastes have helped make the Rock Band series my fake-band games of choice, there's simply been no beating Guitar Hero when it comes to heavy metal. Just as the upcoming Beatles game makes sense for Harmonix's music-nerd sensibilities, Guitar Hero: Metallica is a pretty perfect fit for the kind of finger-mangling fret action that has come to define that franchise.

It was announced a while ago that Guitar Hero: Metallica would arrive sometime in the first half of 2009, though today it was revealed via the band's official website that the game would be hitting the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on March 29 in North America, while the rest of the world would have to wait until early May for their chance to Kill 'Em All.

The announcement stated that the Wii and PlayStation 2 versions of the game would also be released in early May, though it wasn't made clear what regions that would apply to.