Guitar Hero: Van Halen

"The song selection will keep you and your friends happy...  Robert Workman, GameDaily.com

IGN.com 5 of 10
Some rock stars don't know when to call it quits and retire. Stardom of days gone by comes knocking at the door and the allure of easy money on a reunion tour can't be passed up. All the band has to do is go through the motions and the millions come pouring in. The same criticisms could be leveled at Guitar Hero Van Halen -- a game starring a band that has seen its better days injected into a franchise that has already seen three previous releases this year. The result is a train wreck. Simply going through the motions isn't enough. Not for a band and not for a videogame...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...Of course, the Career mode was only named that out of tradition. There is no career here. You don't play at classic Van Halen venues or follow their rise to stardom. You just work your way through a list of tunes earning stars. All of the bells and whistles added for Guitar Hero 5 are not here. There are no song challenges or interesting gigs. There aren't even any behind the scenes videos or interviews with the band like there were in Guitar Hero Aerosmith or Metallica. Some tracks have extra facts that can be read while listening to the songs, but not all of them. "Hot for Teacher" is one missing extra info. Talk about phoning it in. - Erik Brudvig