Review: Guitar Hero Van Halen

Release: Dec 22 2009
Developer: Neversoft
Publisher: Activision
Genre: Music/Rhythm
Pros: Challenging Difficulty, fun setlist
Cons: Presentation sub-par compared to Neversoft’s other games, No new features

NOTE: I know what you are thinking: “But Gabriel, the release date for GH: Van Halen is December 22nd, silly!” Well, thanks to the generosity of Activision, I was able to get my ever-twitching hands on a copy of the game WAY early.

Whatever you have to say about Neversoft’s style of making music games, you’ve got to hand it to them: they are some prolific mothertruckers. This year alone they have pumped out more Guitar Hero games than you can count on one hand. In all honesty, it’s surprising these guys get enough sleep to be able to put out so many games, especially considering that all them are all of at least decent quality.

Guitar Hero: Van Halen was developed before production on Guitar Hero 5 began. Because of this, Van Halen runs on the same engine as GH: World Tour and GH: Metallica. Not that this is a bad thing; the Metallica engine is very capable. However, after experiencing the all new features of the GH5 engine, I find that it is sorely missed. Though the presentation is solid, it doesn’t reach the heights obtained by the much more highly polished GH: Metallica. Complaints aside, frontman David Lee Roth and guitar virtuoso Eddie Van Halen are both animated well enough to mirror their real-life counterparts. Over the course of the game you’ll be treated to David performing such antics as swinging a mic stand around like a twirling baton or pantomiming tommy guns and pistols with his hands. Meanwhile, Eddie will be smiling his way through tapping intricate solos, turning volume knobs (Cathedral), and even brandishing a power drill. All of these stage actions are mo-capped realistically, and are genuinely entertaining. It’s really too bad that the rest of the game doesn’t look as good.

You'd be angry too if YOUR drummer was off-sync

Wolfgang, Eddie’s son who recently went on tour with the band as bassist, is also decently animated. The problem is that he really doesn’t have an exciting stage presence, and for all intents and purposes, he could have been replaced by a generic A.I character. The same thing goes for Alex Van Halen, the drummer. Although his playing is very good, his avatar shows no emotion or uniqueness at all- a great contrast to Lars Ulrich in GH: Metallica. Besides Van Halen itself, the character animations are as good as in Metallica, though one gets the feeling the visuals are out of sync with the songs. All this coupled with the less engrossing camera angles and lack of stage encores makes Van Halen the weakest presentation out of Neversoft since World Tour was released. It’s a good thing then that the charts are entertaining enough to keep your attention away from the stage and on the fretboard.

In Guitar Hero Van Halen, there are a total of 28 Van Halen tunes, (sadly no Van Hagar included) and 19 guest songs. Unlike GH: Metallica, the guest songs weren’t picked by the headlining band itself (unless those guys REALLY liked “Stacy’s Mom”). This leads to some unexpected and interesting inclusions, like “I Want It All” and “Double Vision.” There are, as there sadly always seem to be, repeats in this title. You will be playing the likes of “White Wedding”, Painkiller”, and “Hot For Teacher” yet again. But there is one repeated song that I whole-heartedly welcome: “Dope Nose.” But wait, when was the last time we saw that?

Oh, I remember now.

In all seriousness, the songs by Van Halen fit tremendously well into the Guitar Hero formula, As long as you’ve got the intestinal fortitude to handle them, that is…

Guitar

Given the fact that Eddie Van Halen is a damn good guitar player, I expected the game to be pretty tough. Boy, is that an understatement. Guitar Hero Van Halen is hands-down the most difficult guitar game overall. In terms of the notecharts, (which are a complete blast to play) Neversoft takes GREAT care to include as many slider notes and extended sustains as (In)humanly possible. If you haven’t come to terms with these kinds of notes, then you are out of luck, because practically every song includes both. The really striking thing about the note charts in Van Halen is just how creative they are. You’d think that by now every possible combination/progression of 5 colored buttons would be exhausted- Van Halen proves you dead wrong. The mere sight of these complex and remarkable charts would be enough to make Jean Piaget shiver. Add in the three final guitar solos, (Spanish Fly, Eruption, and Cathedral) and you are in for a world of hurt. The relentless difficulty is a positive point though, as it adds longevity to the otherwise short setlist.

Bass

There is not much to be said about the bass this time around. There aren’t that many Bass prominent songs in the setlist, though overall the difficulty is slightly higher than, say, GH5. Fun fact: When you turn on classic costumes for the band, Wolfgang has another outfit too, rather than reverting to a zygote.

Drums

Surprisingly, GH: Van Halen is actually an overall more difficult drum game than Metallica was. Whereas Metallica had a few somewhat monotonous drum tunes, Van Halen ones are filled with variety, so you won’t just be sitting idly by, while watching the guitarist have all the fun. Van Halen also includes the Expert+ difficulty setting, and there is even an achievement for completing a drum career on Expert+ (good luck with that.) Otherwise, the drums remain largely unchanged.

Vocals

Vocals are identical in mechanics to GH: Metallica, so you will actually be able to tell at which pitch your voice is *cough cough GH5*. The Van Halen songs are a blast to sing through, as are the guest acts. Go ahead, try and sing “Stacy’s Mom” without cracking a smile. I dare ya.

At the end of the day, the deciding factors as to whether you should pass up or buy Van Halen comes down to this: Do you like the setlist? Do you like getting destroyed by brutal-yet-satisfying charts? Do you want a game that makes you work for it’s achievements? If you answered yes to these, then chances are you will enjoy GH: Van Halen. Otherwise, you should think hard about spending full price on a game that amounts to little more than a glorified track pack with amazing charts. There are no new features, no interface changes, or any other kinds of additions whatsoever. The presentation is worse than in Metallica, and everything else is just about the same – but if you want a good spanking, or dig Van Halen, look no further.

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