There’s no denying that music game fans have a hell of a lot of choice on their hands these days. With the likes of two full Rock Band games, Lego Rock Band, various Guitar Heroes, Band Hero, and not forgetting band exclusive titles such as The Beatles Rock Band, Guitar Hero: Metallica and Guitar Hero: Aerosmith; there’s a lot of competition when it comes to what music game is the best. In the unfortunate case of Guitar Hero: Van Halen, it all feels a bit lacklustre. There’s certainly no reason why you should choose this full price offering over any of the others available.
Guitar Hero: Van Halen was originally released in North America before Christmas, even earlier still for those who took part in a promotion enabling them to get it for free after buying Guitar Hero 5. For free it would be mean to complain but at full retail price, it feels awfully expensive for what could have been offered as DLC instead.
As expected there’s the usual variety of modes to jam to but it all feels a little bit too routine. The career mode is particularly sparse with seemingly no effort put into making GH: Van Halen a great experience for fans. There’s no sign of any classic venues to attend, no special gigs and not even any behind the scenes videos to unlock. While there’s some trivia to be unlocked, it’s nothing overly thrilling even for die hard fans. The game doesn’t even offer a comprehensive track listing for Van Halen, covering only the period of 1977-1984, with no sign of any later tracks.
Like Guitar Hero: Metallica, new sets are unlocked by accumulating a set number of stars rather than reaching the end of each set, so it’s pretty simple to work your way through the entire list. Even as a relatively average Guitar Hero player it only took me a couple of casual afternoon sessions to unlock all that GH: Van Halen has to offer.
With only 25 Van Halen tracks and 3 Eddie Van Halen solos, there’s quite a lot of filler needed to make up the rather limited track list. Another 19 guest acts are included meaning you’ll spend nearly half your time playing the likes of the Foo Fighters, Queen of the Stone Age and, er, Weezer and Third Eye Blind. Worst of all there’s Fountains of Wayne’s Stacy’s Mom, a diabolical choice to go alongside the spectacular guitar solos of Eddie Van Halen. There are also a few tracks that rhythm game fans will have seen before such as the Foo Fighters’ offerings and Billy Idol’s White Wedding Part 1 which makes the package deal even worse than before. Fortunately at least there are some great examples of Van Halen hits in the guise of Jump, Hot for Teacher, Intruder and Runnin’ with the Devil. Shame there just aren’t enough stand out tracks though, and you will find yourself getting rather bored of the more mediocre offerings in-between. The difficulty level also feels rather confused. While the Van Halen tracks, particularly in later stages, are as challenging as the likes of Guitar Hero: Metallica, the guest acts are far too easy to master.
Throw in the fact that you can’t even import any of the GH: Van Halen tracks into Guitar Hero 5 and this really is a poor showing from Activision and Neversoft. The likes of Guitar Hero: Metallica and Guitar Hero: Aerosmith may not have been brilliant but at least they offered a better selection of tracks. Guitar Hero: Van Halen manages to ignore its fans yet not appeal to newcomers to Van Halen’s music. Why anyone would buy this over any of the other Guitar Hero games is beyond me as although it is perfectly functional, it is far too uninspiring to bother with. Only buy this if you’re an absolute die hard rhythm gamer who has exhausted all the efforts of the other music games, and the likes of the Rock Band store. Odds are this person doesn’t exist, so just don’t bother. This really should have been DLC or at worst, a budget price release.
VideogameUK verdict: 3/10
