Saturday, December 5, 2009

a real gem in "guitar hero: van halen"


Guitar Hero: Van Halen is not a great Guitar Hero. There aren't many changes from Guitar Hero 5, but I guess that isn't the point of a game like this -- it's more about getting a package for fans of the band. Not to alarm you -- I am not one of these fans. I got the game for free (!) because I bought Guitar Hero 5 within the first week of it coming out. I had to mail in a sticker and some confirmation info which was a bit of a hassle but it's worth it for a free game.

So why am I writing about it? Because even though there's not a lot to write home about this game, there is something about it which is unique. The song list includes 20 or so Van Halen songs and 20 or so songs from other groups. The songs from the other groups are mediocre at best (one of several reasons the game is not that good). The Van Halen songs are, of course, very well done. But even most of these songs have a point where I start to get sick of them. It's the case with all Guitar Hero songs, for the most part: you can only play them so many times before you get bored. One Van Halen song, however, has me coming back again and again in a way that only one other Guitar Hero song has ever done. This song is just simply fun to play, in a way that combines challenge and innovation. That song is "Little Guitars". While I couldn't find a youtube video of the song played on "Hard" (the difficulty setting I'm at), I found an "Expert" which is surprisingly close in structure to the Hard version, so I'm posting it to give you a good impression of why this song is so fun:




Oh, and in case you were wondering what the other song is that I can play over and over again, it's "Cliffs of Dover" by Eric Johnson which can be found on Guitar Hero: Legends of Rock. Here it is on Expert (again, I can only play it on Hard):


Enjoy!

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