Gaming Trend

Gaming Trend Review

by Mike Escobar

There’s one point that is undeniable – 2009 has been the year of Activision and the “Hero” line of music games.  Releasing an amazing SEVEN games in the franchise this year, we’ve seen quite a lot of variety.  Whether it was the huge leap forward in quality in Guitar Hero 5, the virtual love letter to Metallica fans that was Guitar Hero – Metallica, or the foray into brand new territory that DJ Hero gave us, Activision has shown that there are still plenty of new things to see and do in the music game genre.

While it is very tempting to just copy the Guitar Hero – Metallica review and replace “Metallica” with “Van Halen”, that wouldn’t be fair to either game.  As previously stated, Guitar Hero - Metallica was obviously made by huge Metallica fans with tons of input from the band members, as evidenced by all the behind-the-scenes videos, the “Metallifacts” that accompanied every song you completed, and sheer enthusiasm for the source material that you could see in every facet of the game.

Unfortunately, none of those things are true when it comes to Guitar Hero – Van Halen.  Instead of covering the high points of an excellent music catalog that spans over thirty years, Guitar Hero – Van Halen focuses on Van Halen’s first six albums.  While this is some of their most classic work, it is still a pretty limited sampling.  Of course you’re going to have songs like “Pretty Woman”, “Everybody Wants Some”, and “Jump”, but there are some slightly less well-know tracks in there as well, such as “Ice Cream Man”.

While I don’t have a problem with the song selection for the albums they covered, I do have an issue with the complete lack of any of the “Van Hagar” era songs.  Whether you’re a fan of Van Halen during the time Sammy Hagar was the lead singer or not, pretending that those albums never happened is just short of ridiculous.

So if you’re going to concentrate on Van Halen’s earlier work, why is it that the default band you see on stage are all present day representations?  No spandex, no long hair, just a bunch of middle-aged guys rocking along.  There is one exception, and that’s with bassist Wolfgang Van Halen.  Eddie’s 17 year-old son had replaced long-time Van Halen bass player Michael Anthony a few years ago and shows up in the game.  You actually have to play quite a bit of this title to unlock the classic, spandex-clad look for the band, and once you do you are subjected to Wolfgang wearing a kerchief to represent his early 80’s rock attire.  Overall the graphical quality is solid, as it uses the same graphics engine as Guitar Hero - Metallica.  The problem lies not in the quality of the graphics but rather the bland and uninspired venues they play.  According to the game credits, the band didn’t even do the motion capture work for their characters, instead having Neversoft employees stand in. As with any of the other Guitar Hero games, the sound quality for the song tracks is excellent.  After learning their lesson with the Guitar Hero Rocks the 80’s debacle, Activision made sure that only high quality master tracks are present, and they are clean and really let you feel the gritty sound that Eddie Van Halen achieved early on in his career. Another issue that plagues this game is the controls – while it may seem to be a good idea to copy the game engine from Guitar Hero – Metallica AS A STARTING POINT, you may want to look into updating it a bit.  While the Metallica title is solid overall, it was released seven months ago.  In that time, Activision published the excellent Guitar Hero 5 with all its well thought out control and gameplay improvements.  Which you’ll see none of here.  So for those of you that loved party play, dynamic drop-in and drop-out of songs, and full support for Ion drums, you’re just plain out of luck.

The developers stuck with the tried and true gameplay method of having individual note highways for each player, and having the players match the gems as they fall down the screen.  This has worked well for every other music game out there, and should be familiar to gamers who have played any of these titles.  Neversoft also stuck with the usual career mode implementation, where you start off with a limited number of songs available to play, and as you complete the tracks you earn anywhere from one to five stars, based on how well you do.  You also earn cash based on your performance, and that money can be used to purchase clothing, instruments and various other upgrades.

Some of the nice things that were done in this game were the inclusion of the Song Facts and lyrics for each of the songs.  You won’t be able to view the Song Facts until you’ve successfully completed the associated track, but each of these offers some interesting tidbits about the background for the song and the band.  As with other Guitar Hero titles, when using Quick Play, the entire track list is unlocked.  Not having to bother with unlock codes or being forced to finish career mode to be able to see all the songs in the game is one of the best changes that Activision has made with this series.

One note for all you guitar players out there; Guitar Hero – Van Halen doesn’t pull any punches.  Guitar Hero – Metallica introduced the double bass pedal for drums, allowing truly talented faux-drummers to attempt and re-create the insane drum skills of Lars Ulrich of Metallica.  Guitar Hero – Van Halen takes things to the next level for guitar players.  Eddie Van Halen is one of the premier guitar players of all time, and this game includes some of his most famous solos.  Trust me when I tell you that after you’ve tried to play Eruption, Cathedral, and Spanish Fly all on Expert you’ll be begging for the good old “easy” days of Dragonforce’s Through the Fire and Flames!

As part of the promotions leading up to the release of Guitar Hero 5, one of Activision’s deals was the offer that if you pre-ordered GH5 through GameStop, you would also receive Guitar Hero – Van Halen for free and before the official release date of the game.  If you were fortunate enough to take advantage of that promotion, then this title is the deal of the year.  If you missed out on that bargain, then you would have to be a huge Van Halen fan to make this title worth the full retail price.  The game contains a little more than two dozen Van Halen songs, and a pile of unrelated music.  While there are some good tracks included, I’m mystified as to how songs like Fountains of Wayne’s Stacy’s Mom is related to Van Halen.  I would have to consider long and hard before I would pick this title up at full price. Limited coverage of Van Halen’s long history as a band, little involvement from the band members themselves, and a strange assortment of accompanying tracks all conspire to limit the appeal of this title.  This is particularly frustrating because all of these mistakes could have been easily fixed.  If the developers had used the gameplay improvements from Guitar Hero 5, gotten more involvement from the band, and had a track list that covered more than a limited range of the band’s history, this title would have been damn near perfect.  As it is, this game is really only going to appeal hardcore Van Halen fans and those of us lucky enough to have gotten the game for free.

Gaming Trend Score

78

1. Graphics: 80
2. Audio: 90
3. Controls: 75
4. Gameplay: 80
5. Value/Replay: 60
6. OVERALL:78