I think that if you want to play it through a standard setup of guitar and combo-amp.. the simplest answer is a pedal (aka stomp box). BOSS pedals have some good ones.. I think they even have one called Metal Zone or something like that. Then again.. for the price of 2 cheap pedals, you can get an adequate multi-effects pedal instead. Last time I bought a pedal by itself, it cost about $70. When I bought my Zoom G1X it cost about $140.

I remember when I got my first pedal, that was a BOSS DS-1 - Distortion. Simple name.. great sound.. it really changed everything. Overdriving your little practise amp is one thing but amplifying/distorting the signal before it gets to the amp is a completely different thing altogether. There are some pedals that you should buy separately, in my opinion, like the wah pedal. I've heard some decent wah's on multi-fx floor units but I've always felt that a separate one sounds better. When you get up to a louder level you can use the effects less and rely more on the amp to generate the distorted sound.. but on basic combo-amps you generally need to rely more on the effects.

When I got my first electric guitar I didn't understand how to play it.. it just didn't make sense to me at all. I could play my acoustic without even thinking.. but for some reason, playing the electric guitar made me feel different and I couldn't relate to it. I sought out a guitar teacher that I went to for several weeks until I got bored but he did teach me a couple of things and one of those was that effects do not make me a better player... it's a very important thing to remember when starting out with effects. Some of the most amazing sounds come from the most basic of setups.. a lot of the time just straight from guitar to amp to stack..