GH: Van Halen due before Xmas in US

By Robert Purchese Published 6 August, 2009

Just three days before, in fact.

Activision has apparently dated Guitar Hero: Van Halen for 22nd December in the US, putting the release super-close to Christmas - a period usually shunned by publishers.

We're checking for European details but won't expect to see the game that Friday, because that happens to be Christmas Day.

Activision confirmed US plans to GameSpot, plus provided a full menu of GH: Van Halen tracks.

Of those, 25 are by the group Van Halen, while a further three are solos by Eddie Van Halen. On top of that are 19 songs by various other bands, including Queen, Tenacious D and Lenny Kravitz. Weezer are in there too. Why? No one knows.

Guitar Hero: Van Halen will be available on the usual platform quartet: PS2, PS3, Wii and Xbox 360.

Tracks by Van Halen:

  • "Ain't Talkin Bout Love"
  • "And the Cradle Will Rock"
  • "Atomic Punk"
  • "Beautiful Girls"
  • "Dance the Night Away"
  • "Everybody Wants Some"
  • "Feel Your Love Tonight"
  • "Hang 'Em High"
  • "Hear About it Later"
  • "Hot for Teacher"
  • "Ice Cream Man"
  • "I'm the One"
  • "Jamie's Cryin"
  • "Jump"
  • "Little Guitars"
  • "Loss of Control"
  • "Mean Street"
  • "Panama"
  • "Pretty Woman"
  • "Romeo Delight"
  • "Running with the Devil"
  • "So This is Love"
  • "Somebody Get Me a Doctor"
  • "Unchained"
  • "You Really Got Me"

Solos by Eddie Van Halen

  • "Cathedral" (solo)
  • "Eruption" (solo)
  • "Spanish Fly" (solo)

Tracks by other bands:

  • Alter Bridge - "Come to Life"
  • Billy Idol - "White Wedding"
  • blink-182 - "First Date"
  • Deep Purple - "Space Truckin"
  • Foo Fighters - "Best Of You"
  • Foreigner - "Double Vision"
  • Fountains of Wayne - "Stacy's Mom"
  • Jimmy Eat World - "Pain"
  • Judas Priest - "Painkiller"
  • Killswitch Engage - "The End of Heartache"
  • Lenny Kravitz - "Rock and Roll is Dead"
  • Queen - "I Want it All"
  • Queens of the Stone Age - "Sick, Sick, Sick"
  • Tenacious D - "Master Exploder"
  • The Clash - "Safe European Home"
  • The Offspring - "Pretty Fly For a White Guy"
  • Third Eye Blind - "Semi-Charmed Life"
  • Weezer - "Dope Nose"
  • Yellowcard - "The Takedown" other bands:
Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (14) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Zebula77 #1 3 years ago

    Oh, oh, oh! I am soooo getting this. I don't even care that Activision is the company releasing this, or that they're shamelessly milking the series. This is the best tracklist I've ever seen. Even the guest acts are great (well, I don't like Offspring...) with Space Truckin', I Want it All, Master Exploder etc.

    Has a big happy.

  • berelain #2 3 years ago

    curses, those guest tracks are quite good.

    Still not buying, tho. On principle. One Guitar Hero and Rock Band are enough for me.

  • daz_john_smith #3 3 years ago

    Definitely some good guest tracks on there, but I can't believe they're releasing YET ANOTHER GH game this year. WTF are they gonna release next year.

    Sad thing is, if GH5 had song transfer allowing tracks from Metallica, Greatest Hit and Van Halen, then I'd buy them all. Instead I'll wait until they drop to a reasonable price

  • mashk #4 3 years ago

    THREE DAYS BEFORE CHRISTMAS ?!?!?!?!?!

    Might as well jump.

  • siro #5 3 years ago

    It will probably be to expensive...

    also what daz_john_smith said. I bought a third GH and didn't even use it as the disc changing is just too ridiculous.

  • MyAfroAndMe #6 3 years ago

    Another GH game... Allow people to buy them as dlc or import and stop milking fans of the series forall they've got.

    Why dont Activision just fuck off?

  • awb83 #7 3 years ago

    good god almighty, another GH game??!?!


    talk about rape......

  • Fr3gU #8 3 years ago

    Well spoken, lads.

    Boycot those milking sons of guns! I'd definately buy this if it was released as a track pack I could access from ANY GH-game (post GH3 of c) but now? Not so much. I'm sick and tired of chnging discs and not being able to play even DLC form other games that let's say GHWT.

    Watch out, Activision... when the naive starts to see clearly, you will fall

  • daz_john_smith #9 3 years ago

    I love GH, but this year I just haven't been able to keep up with the releases and so far I haven't bought any of them. The way I see it; if they're going to keep over saturating the market with titles like this then previous titles are going to lose their value very quickly.

  • Enzeru #10 3 years ago

    How do they get away with taking RB dlc and releasing it at full price again? Ridiculous

    edit: and making you start over with a new character in each and every sodding game that takes forever to grind up for the achievements?
    Edited by 1 at 06/08/09 @ 11:23

  • beastmaster #11 3 years ago

    Where the cfuffin' hell did this come from? I giveth not a shit though.

  • Notez #12 3 years ago

    > The way I see it; if they're going to keep over saturating the market with titles like this then previous titles are going to lose their value very quickly.

    Actually, after WT (the first GH game with REALLY bad mechanics and songs imo) and all the subsequent titles came out, even GH3 suddenly started to seem like a really good game (which I initially considered a big downgrade from GH2 due to the sloppy timing windows and overcharted songs). With the free DLC (battles), there are quite many fun rhythm guitar tracks to be enjoyed in COOP - something that should have been a given in every release. But no...

    Make no mistake though - GH2 still stands so far above Neversoft's releases that I enjoy playing it with a friend immensely even after hearing the covers a million times. It's just plain fun - the charts, mechanics and especially the COOP play when going for high scores.

    Neversoft's way* of making these games seems to be a setlist that looks good on paper to most people, then mess up the game engine for worse and fine tune the graphics so that it looks good, while the user interface elements are placed with the help of a random number generator. They keep adding elements to the gameplay without adding to the fun and all the while the whole gets worse.

    All the people I play with agree with one thing: It doesn't matter at all what the song is in these games if it's fun to play - cover, shit band you'd never listen to or whatever. Sure I enjoy some tracks I recognize, but as far as fun goes, Harmonix seems to have a freehold on that. I just hope they add a decent career and rhythm guitar tracks back to their games...

    Now if Van Halen came out even with the GH3-engine I would be interested, but it's hard to get excited after they watered down and broke the franchise.

    * I don't know which studio is doing this game, but they probably use Neversoft's game as a base like Beenox
    Edited by 1 at 06/08/09 @ 14:11

  • RobotRocker #13 3 years ago

    @ Zebula77

    White Wedding, Space Truckin', Painkiller, Sick, Sick, Sick, Master Exploder, Pretty Fly For A White Guy are in Rock Band already. Semi-Charmed Life is on its way in too.

    Will be hammering the RB websites request function for Stacy's Mom though. Thats a damn fine pop song.

  • Zebula77 #14 3 years ago

    @ Robot Rocker:

    True, true. I'm just blinded by the Van Halen awesomeness. :p
    Eddie is the reason I picked up a guitar in real life, and I've been looking forward to something like this since GH 1.

    ...kinda hate myself for not dissing Activision this time (especially with the Brütal Legend thing!)