GH: VH is yet ANOTHER spin-off of the series. It it worth it?
For those of you who have been living under a rock for that last three years and have no idea of how guitar hero works, here's a quick break-down: in guitar hero, you are given a special controller (depending on which instrument you have so guitar means you get a guitar controller, drums get drum controller, you get the idea) which allows you to play along to your favorite rock songs. Seems like a basic idea right? WRONG. You see, it may SOUND easy, but trust me, first time playing, GOOD GOD IS IT HARD. It's basically a game you have to master to be any good at it. GH: VH is basically that: playing along with your favorite VH songs (well, not all of them as I'll explain later). With that out the way, let's begin.
I won't bother with the graphics too much because let's think about, when it comes to guitar hero, you're not going to be spending much time looking at the graphics, you're just going to be looking at the highway to see which notes come next. All you need to know is that the graphics are fine, not the best. That's all you need to know.
With that, we move onto what makes or breaks a guitar hero game: the soundtrack. The soundtrack features lots of hard rocking VH songs for you to play on, from the insane drum solo intro of Hot for teacher, to that awesome opening of Runnin' with the devil, to Jump, and of course to that insane finger melting solo know only as Eruption. Just from Eruption's appearence, YOU KNOW THAT EVEN FOR A GH GAME, THIS GAME IS GOING TO BE HARD. At the same time, however the track list seems to also be the game's weak point. Sure, there are some belters in there but I noticed that there are absolutly NO SONGS from the Sammy Hagar period of the band. And while we're on the topic, this game only features the CURRENT members of VH so Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony aren't even in the game. Sure, you can unlock the classic skin option but it's still just a slightly reskined Wolfgang on bass. I'm sorry, I don't care what anyone says, IT JUST IS NOT VAN HALEN UNLESS MICHAEL ANTHONY IS ON BASS.
Sorry for getting off topic there, so as you can see, quite a big mistake in the setlist right there. And while we're at it, I was also kind of bugged by some of the guest tracks. Sure, some of them are good like Tenacious D's Master Exploder and Queen's I want it all but at the same time, most of them just feel thrown in at the last second like Jimmy Eat World's Pain or Stacy's Mom (In a Van Halen game? SERIOUSLY?).
Overall though, I do feel like dispite it's flaws, it's still a fairly enjoyable entry to the series. It's really just for DIE HARD GH fans and DIE HARD VH fans (I happen to fall into the latter). Would I recomend it? I'd just say rent it and try it out. It's average at best, but still that's not to say VH fans aren't going to like it out. Now if you'll excuse, I need to do some serious finger training to beat Eruption on expert.......
Final score:
Graphics: 3/5
Sound : 4/5
Gameplay: 3/5
Entertainment: 3/5
Overall: 13/20