Van Halen Guitar Hero Review

After just over four weeks of waiting, my free copy of Van Halen Guitar Hero showed up in the mail on Saturday. Before I get down on the product, let me first say, it’s a lot of fun. It’s also a joy to play all the old tunes. There are some issues though.

I realize now Beatles Rock Band is the game that all music simulation games will be judged, which causes the initial disappointment with Van Halen Guitar Hero. As a Van Halen fan who has seen the band three times in concert as well as seeing David Lee Roth do solo concerts twice, I understand the stage mannerisms of the band with the exception of Wolfgang Van Halen (who looks like Pugsley from the Adams Family in the game). Unfortunately, the programmers didn’t do a good job of capturing the state mannerisms of the band, with the exception of the traditional jumps that band is known for—David Lee Roth’s acrobats and Eddie Van Halen’s hurdle jump. You quickly get the feeling that most of the game was created with typical Guitar Hero movements with the Van Halen band substituted over the traditional Guitar Hero characters.

I can live with that. Unfortunately the song list doesn’t always play well with the movement on the screen. Cathedral is one of my favorite Van Halen guitar solos, but it’s not believable when you play it back with the Guitar Hero track. Fortunately, most of the song list doesn’t have this issue. Obviously due to Eddie’s playing style, it’s hard to mimic on the game, which is a drawback. The game is still tons of fun.

If you want to capture the frantic Van Halen playing style, try Feel Your Love Tonight. It’s a blast to play. Hot For Teacher is quite the challenge too. Jump, with simulates the guitar over the synthesized tracks could have been left off, but as you know, it’s one of the band’s biggest hits; therefore it’s on the set list.

I wish Guitar Hero would stick to the band when they do the band editions. In case you don’t know, this is the third band specific Guitar Hero. They already created an AC/DC and an Aerosmith version.

Van Halen fans have to put up with other bands in the set list. Some which don’t make sense and others in bad parts of their career. It’s hard to get into bands like Weezer when you are jamming to Van Halen. It makes no sense other than to increase the marketing. If you are going to put a Judas Priest track on the set list why choose Pain Killer? Judas Priest had better days.

Overall, the game is a lots of fun and definitely worth the price they will charge when it comes out in stores in December. I had a blast playing it for a couple of hours when the free version arrived on Saturday. The free version comes in cardboard packaging.