As part of the Guitar Hero 5 buy-one-get-one-free promotion, I got Guitar Hero: Van Halen in the mail today and have played it for a few hours. So what’s it like?I’ve got a full review coming soon so I’m not going to drill down super deep here, but there are some important points that music game fans should know. -Van Halen songs are fun as hell to play.-The game is built on the old World Tour/Metallica engine so don’t expect party mode, separate band member star power, or being able to save failed out friends. This is especially baffling since it comes out December 22, after GH 5 and Band Hero, which both use the new engine.-Having Eddie Van Halen’s teenage son, Wolfgang, as the bass player is just plain weird.-Many of the “guest acts” appearing in the game don’t fit at all with the Van Halen vibe. Specifically: Fountains of Wayne – “Stacy’s Mom,” The Offspring – “Pretty Fly For A White Guy,” Third Eye Blind – “Semi-Charmed Life.”-For the first chunk of the game, you must play as 2009 Van Halen. Spandex: no. Hair: no. Man jewelry: yes. Frosty tips: yes.FULL SETLIST = 47 tracksVan Halen: 28“Ain’t Talkin Bout Love”“And The Cradle Will Rock”“Atomic Punk”“Beautiful Girls”“Cathedral” (solo)“Dance The Night Away”“Eruption” (solo)“Everybody Wants Some”“Feel Your Love Tonight”“Hang ‘Em High”“Hear About It Later”“Hot For Teacher”“Ice Cream Man”“I’m The One”“Jamie’s Cryin”“Jump”“Little Guitars”“Loss Of Control”“Mean Street”“Panama”“Pretty Woman”“Romeo Delight”“Running With The Devil”“So This Is Love”“Somebody Get Me A Doctor”“Spanish Fly” (solo)“Unchained”“You Really Got Me”Other Bands: 19Alter Bridge – “Come To Life”Billy Idol – “White Wedding”blink-182 – “First Date”Deep Purple – “Space Truckin”Foo Fighters – “Best Of You”Foreigner – “Double Vision”Fountains of Wayne – “Stacy’s Mom”Jimmy Eat World – “Pain”Judas Priest – “Painkiller”Killswitch Engage – “The End Of Heartache”Lenny Kravitz – “Rock And Roll Is Dead”Queen – “I Want It All”Queens of the Stone Age – “Sick, Sick, Sick”Tenacious D – “Master Exploder”The Clash – “Safe European Home”The Offspring – “Pretty Fly For A White Guy”Third Eye Blind – “Semi-Charmed Life”Weezer – “Dope Nose”Yellowcard – “The Takedown”
I went to the place were every white face was an invitation to robbery.... awesome
To hell with Activision, Neversoft and all of these God forsaken Guitar Hero games! Rock Band FTW!
God I'm sick of Rock Band fanboys. Complaining about band specific games but then when Beatles Rock Band is announced band games are the freaking second coming of jesus...
Anyways, I'm getting this for free, and I liked the Metallica engine.
what are you referring to GhostRise?
This game is cool enough, maybe its just because I have been playing these games since GH1, but music games are losing their pizazz.
I need to learn to play my guitar. These music games just motivate me more and more to play a real instrument.
Joey ur a moron.
I do overall prefer the Rock Band series to the Guitar Hero series these days, but I must admit kudos to Neversoft for choosing Van Halen as their next target for a band specific game. Eddie's guitar skills are perfect for the hardcore rhythm game player.
I am a little weirded out with Wolfgang being the bassist though, along with some of the song list selection. Seriously, "Stacy's Mom" and Yellowcard? Did "Band Hero" come and sneeze on this game or something?
Hopefully the amount of Van Halen songs are good enough to make players forget about some of those other choices. Especially great for those that took advantage of that GH5/GH:VH deal. I might be slightly wishing I jumped on that train.
The "other bands" don't make sense... yellow card? Weezer? 3rd eye blind?
Honestly, only painkiller really fits, and we already got that on rockband. Why couldn't they have picked a different priest song like metal meltdown?
Bryan was playing that Third Eye Blind song today in the conference room today, and I still hate him for it.
Track List looks pretty good for a free game although I am a Van Halen fan.
That's too bad that it doesn't have party mode.
It's sad that the song I'm most excited to play in this entire game isn't even a Van Halen track, it's Foo Fighters.
Also, terrible to hear that they've gone back to the old interface and mechanics for this one instead of continuing with the really smart upgrades made in GH 5. I'm still waiting for my freebie copy to show up, but the switch back to the old style is definitely going to be incredibly jarring.
i'm so fricking tired of Guitar Hero. hardly any of the guest acts fit with Van Halen and some have already been done on Rock Band 2. Give me Guitar Hero: SLAYER and maybe i'll give a crap about this franchise again. otherwise, i'll just wait and hope that Harmonix is working on Rock Band 3.
After hearing about the dual pack GH 5 and GH Van Halen I went out and got it. Personally I was not expecting groundbreaking music platforming when I heard I was getting Van Halen for free. I am going to give it a whirl when I finally get it in the mail.
Finally, I get to play "Ain't Talkin' Bout Love" on my pretendo guitar. I've been playing the intro to that song on air guitar for years...
ummm joey johnson Harmonix is just as bad
Well good thing this is a freebie so the Guitar Hero fans won't have to buy ANOTHER Guitar Hero game this year. Well I am off to play some Rock Band where I have 1 game with a possible music library of over 500 songs.
van halen is one of the best rock-n-roll bands of all time..as well as metallica and aerosmith! i think GH has done a great job with all these titles..just the fact that,neversoft & company have signed bands of that caliber is just amazing in itself not to mention the games are badass!! you gotta give rockband 1&2 respect too just because of the insane dlc content....and all the drunken rockband nights of spilled beer,missed notes,and just plain suckin!! ahhh! the memories!
awesome,finally i get to see the guitarist suffer,though the drums are no walk in the park either.
I'll probably be renting this, and if it's good enough, then I'll buy it. It kills me to say this, but ever since World Tour, GH just hasn't appealed to me as much. You know it's a bit saddening when you rent all the games or wait for them to get cheaper instead of buy them right off the bat... Not to say that it isn't fun, it's just not AS fun as it used to be :-(
@ Joey Johnson: What's wrong with liking both franchises?
Since I'm getting it free, It's worth the money.