Yeee-owch. IGN posted their review of Guitar Hero: Van Halen yesterday, and it is brutal. The reviewer knocks the game to the floor and then just keeps kicking: “These non-Van Halen tracks are pure filler and a piss-poor way to round out a set list.” “[B]egs the question as to why this wasn’t simply a downloadable add-on to another Guitar Hero game.” “Talk about phoning it in.”
But here’s a quote that struck me a little odd:
It would be tough to pick a major band that is more irrelevant to popular culture today than Van Halen. The band that wowed arenas filled with screaming fans in the ’80s through the virtuoso guitar work of Eddie Van Halen and on-stage antics of David Lee Roth is best known by the youth of today through kitchy references in Adam Sandler and Judd Apatow films. The majority of Van Halen’s catalog has fallen into obscurity by all but the most ardent fans.
I’m most definitely not a Van Halen fan, but I find this statement hard to believe. Eddie Van Halen is almost universally recognized as one of the all-time greats on the electric guitar; I don’t see how the band that carries his name could ever fall into obscurity. Am I wrong here?
I don’t have the game yet — the downside of being sent a copy of Guitar Hero 5 for review rather than buying it at retail was that I didn’t have a receipt to participate in the Van Halen giveaway. So I’d be curious to hear what those of who you have the game think of it.
For contrast, here’s another review from GameDaily. Though it’s also not a glowing recommendation, it is a bit less, ah, ardent in its criticism.
[Read]
I wrote a “initial reaction” post on my blog. In sum, great songs (I love classic Van Halen), terrible game (in comparison to the realism of The Beatles Rock Band). Because of my love of classic VH music, I play it all the time, and would likely buy DLC, if it’s ever made available.
You can read more about it, if you want:
http://mygggo.com/2009/10/guitar-hero-van-halen-initial-reaction/
I definitely agree about the obscurity. I’m 19 and have zero familiarity with Van Halen and none of my friends seem to know anything about them either. Just because someone is known to be some sort of amazing guitarist doesn’t mean that people are familiar with his work.
I mean…how many people these days are really that familiar with the works of Picaso? Most people know the artist by name but that doesn’t make his work any more culturally relevant.
Picasso is still culturally relevant, for two reasons: Anyone who appreciates art would recognize his work. Anyone with a passing familiarity (has visited a good art museum, took the time to read the information) would, if presented with an example of cubism, guess Picasso (right or wrong, it’s still a good guess). The second reason is that modern artists are still inspired and influenced by Picasso’s work. It’s likely that some of the artists and animators for your favorite games would say they’re inspired by Picasso’s work.
As for VH: I never understood the appeal of the band in general. Eddie is a great guitarist, to be sure, but I’ve never enjoyed the style or songs that band has put out. I was really surprised when a game was announced featuring them.
In regards to the merits of the game I don’t see how Van Halen’s current cultural merit has any bearing at all. It is only a marketing critique, that’s it.
For a Van Halen music game, how good of a Van Halen music game is it? That’s the frakkin question. Sure you can pan it on lack of innovation and weak features, poor reproduction of the culture of the band, and generally doing a poor job of everything Beatles Rock Band excels at – that I can understand.
As for the filler tracks, did they not do like they did with GH:Metallica and let Van Halen pick the songs themselves? If they had, then the reviewer is saying Van Halen picked crappy songs to be significant to their own game… bizarre. If GH didn’t bother to do that this time then they truly did phone it in.
Hey Activision if you could at least export the songs, maybe the reviewers would go easier on it. As it is, we are seeing Activisions Quantity losing to Harmonix’s Quality.
supposedly Wolfgang got to pick the filler songs. it wouldn’t surprise me though if he was handed a list of pre-cleared, already being worked on songs, and told to pick from that list.
the game itself is only good if you are a VH fan, or expert GH guitar player. for the casual fan it brings nothing to the table, and should have been DLC.
however, as a huge VH fan – this game (or at least 25 tracks of it) are FUN, FUN, FUN!! on guitar and drums.
the whole concept, execution, and marketing of this game is STRANGE. i suspect 6 months to a year from now, there will be some good juicy gossip explaining what the %^#& went on behind the scenes and why this game was such a clusterf*ck.
OK, so as I play through all the songs in GH:VH, I’m realizing that..
.. well .. although I’m a fan, Van Halen wasn’t really.. that.. great of a band. Which makes the whole exercise a bit perplexing. Good band, yes. Solid band, for sure. Some great songs.
But is this a band so epic that they really needed an entire branded game “experience” wrapped around them?
notsomuch.
Drop a Queen-like 12 pack of Van Halen songs in Rock Band 2, and you’d get essentially the same experience as this standalone game for a fraction of the price.
Basically, this is where Activision’s lack of a decent DLC experience is screwing them. Compare with the RB DLC: complete albums, Iron Maiden, Queen, Spinal Tap, etc.
I’m with SebastianSB, particularly the comparison to Picasso. Will the name Van Halen go away? Probably not for another 30-35 years. And they might remain identifiable for some time too, but not by me. I’m 29, have not lived in a hole in the ground, and never consciously listened to Van Halen. The closest I got was when Marty uses it to freak out his Dad in Back to the Future…
The screen pic makes them look like bad action figures.
Granted, GH:VH definitely feels like a step backward in gameplay, with it being released after GH5. They should’ve either released this game 6 months ago, or used the GH5 engine to make it.
But, I have to totally disagree with that reviewer’s comments about the tracklist. There are waaa-aa-aay more songs that I actually ENJOY in just those 19 “filler” songs than in the entirety of GH5.
When I play Guitar Hero, I want ROCK! I’m not out to impress my turtleneck-wearing friends with some kitschy tracklist that sounds like it was yanked from a douchey iPod commercial.
Like SebastianSB, I’m 19. But unlike him, I’m at least aware of Van Halen’s music as opposed to just the name.
I bought their debut album on CD a couple of years ago. While it’s not the sort of music I’ll listen to obsessively, I’ve always thought that most of the songs on it would be perfect for a game like Guitar Hero or Rock Band. It’s probably the best representation of late 70s/early 80s metal. “Runnin’ with the Devil”, “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love”, “Jamie’s Cryin’”… these would all be fantastic as playable songs.
Sure, you could say they’re probably irrelevant to the tastes of anyone born past, say, 1989. But that doesn’t mean they’re irrelevant to pop culture or the history of popular music in general. And the GH/RB series’ have a history of reviving the relevancy of once-popular bands, anyway. The number of 15-year-olds who give a shit about Deep Purple or Guns n’ Roses has probably increased tenfold in the past three years. The cultural relevancy of a band isn’t exactly the driving factor into their music translating into interesting game tracks.
That said, I have absolutely no interest in playing GH: Van Halen. But it has less to do with the band and their music and more with Activision’s scheme in handling band-specific games (and Activision’s handling of music games in general). Including “filler” tracks by other artists into a band-specific game is a giant turn off.
I don’t support these band-specific titles in general. I’m not even sure I’m happy about Harmonix’s decision to separate The Beatles from the rest of Rock Band.
Harmonix is doing a better job of it, but both Rock Band and Guitar Hero should strive to be iTunes-like delivery platforms.
A Van Halen DLC 12-pack? I’m there. An entire retail disc featuring Van Halen and several artists I don’t give a shit about? I’ll pass.
If only more than 15 people would hear this..