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Guitar Hero : Van Halen - Page 2

post #31 of 88
10/10/09 at 1:31pm
jwebb, someone on the GH forum already got his wii edition and said it is NOT compatible with RB2 drums. He didn't say about guitars and RB drums thoguh. I haven;t checked the mail today, but would be cool if I already got this. But if it doesn't allow for RB2 drums I bet it's based on the WT engine which is pretty stupid.

edit: so much for that. I didn't get mine. So I expect it Monday or Tuesday.

edit2: yeah everyone says this uses the WT engine. Good thing it was free as I haven't even played GHSH due to knowing it was the WT engine. Now this isn't worth nearly as much until it becomes improtable and I get a sd card to fit the content.

edit3: Just realized we won't be able to import because we don't receive a manual. And how smart of them to go in REVERSE and release a game with an inferior engine AFTER GH5.

edit4: Monday is Columnus Day so I assume this won't be ehre until Tuesday or Wednesday now. Sigh.
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post #32 of 88
10/11/09 at 11:34am
Thread Starter 
The code you mention is on the cardboard slipcover the game comes in.

If importable later on, THAT is the code you'll use.
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post #33 of 88
10/11/09 at 12:53pm
Well that is the only positive about this crap. They really misled because people were going to assume it would be built on the GH5 engine since it was an offer tied to the game and was being released after it. I wouldn't have spent $50 on it most likely. They shouldn't even charge that as not many wil pay $50 for a WT engine game.
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post #34 of 88
10/11/09 at 7:26pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by BASHERS33 View Post

Well that is the only positive about this crap. They really misled because people were going to assume it would be built on the GH5 engine since it was an offer tied to the game and was being released after it. I wouldn't have spent $50 on it most likely. They shouldn't even charge that as not many wil pay $50 for a WT engine game.

According to those in the know, VH has been done since July & was originally due before GH5. Activision delayed it to avoid butting too close up to GH5, Beatles, Band Hero, etc.

Neversoft handed this game off to a couple of developers - neither of which was VicariousVisions. Hence the Metallica/SH engine.

Not sure how anyone was misled......but I'm sure since you seem to have been, a class action lawsuit is nigh.

The early good reviews from those who have it already forced my hand....went & bought a used GH Les Paul this wknd. At least I'll be able to rock Eddie's stuff.
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post #35 of 88
10/11/09 at 7:46pm
Not sure what good reviews you read, but when I glanced all I had noticed was people complaining about the graphics, the vocals, no party play since it's using the GHWT engine, etc...

I saw one person say it's a must for guitar lovers. That's all I've seen positive about it.

As far as being misled I wasn't even tlaking about me. It's funny that in the past you posted that you were hoping it was compatible with RB equipment yet now you act like it was known all along it would be the crap engine.
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post #36 of 88
10/12/09 at 7:44am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by BASHERS33 View Post

Not sure what good reviews you read, but when I glanced all I had noticed was people complaining about the graphics, the vocals, no party play since it's using the GHWT engine, etc...

I saw one person say it's a must for guitar lovers. That's all I've seen positive about it.

As far as being misled I wasn't even tlaking about me. It's funny that in the past you posted that you were hoping it was compatible with RB equipment yet now you act like it was known all along it would be the crap engine.

There are several threads over there where plenty of people are digging playing the songs. Yes, some whine about the old engine being used & whatnot, but overall plenty who have the game have liked it, esp being that it was free.

Still a lot that hope it eventually will export. I am among those. I had read for quite some time now that it predated GH5 in terms of development. Was just hoping to see RB compatibility tacked on. It wasn't. Yet the sun still came up today.

If it meant that I had to sell out $15 for a used GH3 guitar to at least play the guitar parts (the ones I really care about with this particular title), so be it.

Either way, our copies should arrive via mail this week. And I cannot wait to hear your laundry list of complaints.
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post #37 of 88
10/13/09 at 3:19pm
Got my copy, but haven't played yet.
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post #38 of 88
10/13/09 at 5:40pm
Thread Starter 
Mine arrived today as well. Will plow into it tonight.
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post #39 of 88
10/13/09 at 8:38pm
Confusing that you play songs before even making your rocker. lol

Anyway so far I have only played the first two VH songs and the blink 182 song.

My impressions so far are "so-so". Back to having star power not activated easily (bug), but on the other hand back to SEPARATE careers for instruments which was stupid to not include in GH5.

Also back to even more lag with the notes and just an overall worse feel to playing than GH5. Hopefully as I play mroe some fun charting will come up though.

edit: Now I have played 7 songs and still not impressed with any as far as gameplay. Yes I like the MUSIC. But the charting is just a lot of two fret chords 90% of the time so far. I hope some songs get more interesting as far as gameplay. As far as music though I forgot some of these songs and was like oh yeah VH has more songs I always liked than I remembered. Although they do have quite a few that sound mighty similar as far as overall beat of the song so that's probably why I forgot there were more I liked than I recalled as several sound so similar.
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post #40 of 88
10/14/09 at 7:54am
Thread Starter 
Played thru about half the game career last night.

VH tunes? Killer & loads of fun. Have to admit that charting of some of the VH tunes - being that they are songs burned into my brain - are actually charted VERY well & quite "realistic" (as 5 "frets" go). Enjoyed the "opening act" tracks I have played so far, as well. The QOTSA track is charted very similarly to the RB version, as is White Wedding. There's gonna be a few, thoough, that'll likely get played once to complete things, then tossed aside forever.

Did manage to make it thru Eruption on hard in the low 80% range.

The stage set you see during VH songs is identical to the stage from the 07 tour. And the VH tunes are mostly those played on that tour.

What I have noticied is that several of the VH tunes seem to have been tweaked a bit. Again, these songs are permanently committed to my memory from hearing & playing them for 25+ yrs. A few tunes seem to have slightly different vocals in some sections. These may be from alternate takes or could even be recent re-recordings or overdubing vocals recorded during the 07 tour - not sure, but these, at least 1 bit of guitar & a few bass tracks seem different. ASsto bass, well....could either be that when re-mixing tunes for the game, the bass was cranked (most old VH records have the bass buried in the mix) or young Wolfgang re-recorded stuff? Who knows.

When you open the last "gig" in Career , the VH characters revert to their 70s looks. Only weird thing about this is, of course, no sign of Mike Anthony. Instead a seemingly time-machine derived version of Wolfie. Oh well. No Sammy makes up for that, IMO!

For a free game, it's pretty sweet. Would not call it a $50 "buy on launch day" title, but certainly fun & well worth the cost of admission (GH5 & a postage stamp). How it does inretail - who knows. Thinking maybe somewhere btwn Areosmith & Metallica? Old school VH-heads (like me) will love it.

Noticed as well occasional difficulty triggering Star Power via tilt - not every time, though. Have found that with how I play using the GH LesPaul, I can generally trigger SP w/ my right pinky hitting the "-" button w/o missing a note (usually). Have not seen any sort of lag of anything. Calibrated the game - plays just fine for me.

Kind of a neat add-on - Song Facts. Many songs, once completed, have options unlocked. One - Lyrics - is obvious. Song lyrics appear on screen while the song plays. Song Facts triggers the song in question to play (same gameplay video minus note highways). As the song plays, "pop up video" factoids appear. This may have been a GH:Metallica feature, I don't know. But kinda cool - and facts apear for both VH tunes as well as those from others.

Managed to unlock EVH as a playable avatar in the non-VH tunes last night.

And one last question.....when did Mike Anthony's name get removed from the songwriting credits for the 1984 tracks? Hmm....interesting.
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post #41 of 88
10/14/09 at 12:55pm
Just got this email from them:

"Dear Guitar Hero® Fan,

We know you're ready to start rocking to Guitar Hero® Van Halen®. We are sending you this email because you took advantage of the Guitar Hero® 5 offer to receive Guitar Hero Van Halen on the PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system platform.

Unfortunately, we made a printing error on the package of Guitar Hero Van Halen. Fortunately, we caught and remedied the error prior to sending your disc. Our effort to ensure a completely positive customer experience has resulted in a slight delay in shipping your copy of the game.

We will begin mailing copies of Guitar Hero Van Halen this week and you should have yours very shortly. Again, we apologize for the delay. We are committed to bringing you the best quality gaming experience possible. We know you are ready to rock and appreciate your patience.

Thanks again for being a loyal fan of Guitar Hero.

Rock on!
The Guitar Hero Team "

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post #42 of 88
10/14/09 at 2:08pm
Thread Starter 
An Activision GH screw-up that DID NOT affect Nintendo? Is the Apocalypse nigh?

It's not the end-all be-all of games (actually glad it was free), but still loads of fun. Bummer - but if you are a VH fan it should be relatively worth the extra wait. Mine took 5 calendar days to arrive from the time the "your game has shipped" msg appeared on the tracking site - and that included Columbus Day & the USPS' day off.
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post #43 of 88
10/14/09 at 3:38pm
For me star power is never very easily triggered. You should have seen me one time. I kept tilting the guitar DRASTICALLY over and over and voer and it wouldn't trigger it. It was baffling. I finally got it to work after many times. It psised me off. I don't recall if I missed a note. I may have eben trying in easy spots. But it was seriously very drastic tilts and still not working. lol
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post #44 of 88
10/14/09 at 4:37pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by BASHERS33 View Post

For me star power is never very easily triggered. You should have seen me one time. I kept tilting the guitar DRASTICALLY over and over and voer and it wouldn't trigger it. It was baffling. I finally got it to work after many times. It psised me off. I don't recall if I missed a note. I may have eben trying in easy spots. But it was seriously very drastic tilts and still not working. lol

Happened to me in WT, but not in GH3 or GH5.
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post #45 of 88
10/14/09 at 6:19pm
Yeah in GH5 I don't think it's even once behaved that way. It works right off. Too bad these games weren't developed alongside that game instead of before it.

They probably were unsure at the time when they would release GHVH. If they knew it would be released at or after GH5 I'm sure they would have waited a tad longer before making it. Maybe be working on it in ways that could have been done before the GH5 engine was done then finish it out alongside GH5. I wish it went that way, anyway.
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post #46 of 88
10/14/09 at 10:51pm
I think I have finished 20 songs now. Eight VH and twelve others. Out of those twenty I still haven't failed a song (I ahven't gone in order though) and I only think the charting is pretty fun in 2 of the 20 (jump and I want it all). So when it comes to importing it looks doubtful that I will be importing nearly as many from this game as GHSH or GHWT even. As i said before yeah the music is all good, but not much feels fun to play on guitar thus far. Meanwhile on GH5 I could list off 10-15 songs right off that I would import onto any future game.

Overall I think GH has the funnest charting for songs, but RB handles solos in a funner way in most cases. Too bad the presentation of the note chart and all the cool things in gh can't also include as fun of solos as RB2.

I still have 60% of career left, but at this point I would think only $30 would be a fair price for the game. They really should have charged $40 max for any of these games that have 40-50 songs since they're charging $50-$60 for the 2 games with nearly 100 songs on them.
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post #47 of 88
10/15/09 at 10:30pm
Great I tripped on a cord and the nintendo fell and it won't read the van halen disc yet will read other discs. i wonder if that means it's a save data problem and I should erase my progress and have to start over.

edit: so much for this great free game. Good thing it was free as now even deleting the save data didn't fix it so the disc is obviously broken somehow and so I got to pay 40% of a mediocre game as my free gift and now have tow ait until it's importable or else maybe get a new disc or I can't even play it. Sucks because there were at least 5 mroe songs I was lookign forward to trying.

edit2: what a headache. Now I have to wait 4-5 weeks before getting a replacement. I sure hope it's only the disc messed up. Like I said it reads my other discs fine. I don't understand what could have happened. I cleaned the disc as instructed and there are only a couple VERY tiny marks on it that you have to tilt the disc just right to even see! I wish it had huge scratches where I knew it is the disc that's messed up.

If anyone has some idea let me know, but I started the process of getting it replaced. Sigh. And I don't go anywhere with a wii often enough to check it in someone else's. It baffles me how the game loads fine in the wii channel thing and starts up fine, yet then just shuts down before totally loading. if it had huge scratches it wouldn't be odd, but the disc sure doesn't look to me like it could be the problem.
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post #48 of 88
10/17/09 at 12:14am
No advice or opinions? Don't you think it would almost surely be the game since my others work?

Now they changed it from 4-6 week estimate to 3-6 so i sure hope somehow that is true and I get it on teh low end. I have to send mine back in INCLUDING the package and instructions, but of course it came with no instructions so I hope that's true and that they send me the cover with the new one where I have my code.
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post #49 of 88
10/21/09 at 5:00pm
I just received my copy of GH:VH for my PS3 in the mail yesterday!
Havent had a chance to play it yet but hopefully tonight.
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post #50 of 88
10/23/09 at 9:40am
Thread Starter 
http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/103/1037777p1.html#

IGN just SAVAGED GH:Van Halen. A dismal 4.9.

While I can't say I disagree w/ all the criticisms, I do find the game to be much better than a sub - 5.0 review score.

Let's see...25 or so classic VH tunes that were a major part of my adolescence included.....CHECK!

Total cost of the game for me.....a retail copy of GH5 - which I might have bought @ some point anyway - & a postage stamp....CHECK!

I got my $$ worth - the VH tunes are a blast. Doubt I would have paid $25-$50 for this in a store, but free in the mail makes it easily a personal 7.5 or so. Blasted thru a few VH chestnuts last night, in fact. On Expert, even!!

Personal score could go up if Activision decides to make exportation to GH5 happen on this. Would LOVE having the VH tunes in GH5/Band Hero.
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post #51 of 88
10/23/09 at 9:50am
Yeah from what i played maybe a 7-8, but not under a 5.

By the way you sure weren't kidding on how hard the end of American Girl is on GH5. I flat can't get past it. And yesterday I somehow hit a star power phrase IN THE MIDDLE of playing that... which shows I at least temporarily hit a section properly which is amazing in itself to me.
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post #52 of 88
10/23/09 at 10:25am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by BASHERS33 View Post

Yeah from what i played maybe a 7-8, but not under a 5.

By the way you sure weren't kidding on how hard the end of American Girl is on GH5. I flat can't get past it. And yesterday I somehow hit a star power phrase IN THE MIDDLE of playing that... which shows I at least temporarily hit a section properly which is amazing in itself to me.

Best I have done so far is in the low 90s on Hard. The big long "tapping" section (even though it's not actual 2 hand technique on the recording) works best for me using 2 hands on the buttons - tracks better using the GHIII guitar but more comfy using an RB guitar w/ the solo buttons for the right hand tapped notes.

Try it w/ your WT guitar, Basher.
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post #53 of 88
10/23/09 at 2:37pm
ok I'll try and see how it goes. In GHWT and RB2 I was still going through hard, but on GH5, GHSH, AND GHVH I started doing only expert so I haven't passed the song on any difficulty yet. I hadn't thought of trying with two hands, but that may indeed help. On the GHWT guitar I'm unsure if I can ever best utilize that touch strip though because it's hard to position your fingers not to accidentally trigger them when you don't want to. Sigh. At elast for me it is.

I still have 4 songs left from the GH5 track list and 2 of the 4 are due to those tapping sections.

On topic: Activision already got my disc in less than 2 days so I hope I don't have to wait long to replay the VH game.
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post #54 of 88
10/24/09 at 8:17am
Quote:
Originally Posted by jwebb1970 View Post

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/103/1037777p1.html#

IGN just SAVAGED GH:Van Halen. A dismal 4.9.

While I can't argue with the low score for Van Halen, these music games are unlike other "standard" games (FPS, adventure, platform) because the amount of enjoyment derived has little to do with the package. Other non-music games get a 4.9 because of poor controls, bad level design or whatever... making the overall game not fun and to be avoided. But in this game... if you like the music, playing guitar with the better tracks in GH: Van Halen ("Panama" and "Little Guitars" spring to mind) is equal fun to playing guitar in other higher-ranking music games.

GH: Metallica is a much better package and deserves it's higher ranking... but even though I would rather listen to the songs in Metallica, I have more fun playing along with most of the songs in Van Halen.
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post #55 of 88
10/24/09 at 10:55am
Yeah that's what i was thinking also. In my opinion though the score itself should be adjusted due to that fact. Me personally I still don't see how better graphics, more modes, etc... can change a score from 4.9 to over a 9 for this type of game.

Hopefully I get my new copy soon to finish it off, but yeah I didn't really enjoy much of this game thus far. But it's nowhere near as bad as a 4.9.

I am playing through smash hits lately too and I don't think it's deserving of such bad ratings as the set list is good.
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post #56 of 88
10/26/09 at 7:45am
Thread Starter 
In the end, the only score that matters is your own personal one.

Is GH:VH the best GH game ever? Hardly. And a lot of the low score via IGN had to do w/ this one being a massive leap backwards when compared to it's retail predecessor (a vastly superior & newly built GH5).

But if you dig the tunes & love playing them, it can have whatever critic's score you want.

Plus anyone who can support or deny said bad review must have the game in their possession already - and got it for FREE. In that respect, everyone has won.

Will say that I hope Activision gets the permission to make this exportable into GH5 (at least the VH tunes). Would be nice to finnaly play drums on the VH disc & GH5's RB compatibility would make that happen for me.
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post #57 of 88
10/26/09 at 10:18am
I played drums on a GH5 song yesterday. ONE SONG and already was sick of it and wished I never bought drums. Not only due to them not working properly, but playing drums just isn't very fun when you have to hurt your foot the whole time while trying to get the freakin drums to work at the same time.

Anyway still no clue how no change in actual gameplay changes a score from over 9 to under 5. People buy to play the songs. I think if it was called Rock Band: Van Halen and had the exact same charting you would praise it as "not quite as good as the beatles game, but one step closer to world peace".
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post #58 of 88
11/5/09 at 6:13am
Looks like I will have my game back today. The tracking number says it will be delivered tomorrow, but I see a couple hours ago it said it was on the truck for delivery so guess I get it a day early.

If I had only known it was the game and not corrupt data I wouldn;t have to replay all those songs again, but to be safe I had deleted my save data and tried it multiple times again.

I hope they properly sent a wii edition and didn't make some dumb mistake of sending rthe wrong version.
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post #59 of 88
11/5/09 at 7:27am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by BASHERS33 View Post

Anyway still no clue how no change in actual gameplay changes a score from over 9 to under 5. People buy to play the songs. I think if it was called Rock Band: Van Halen and had the exact same charting you would praise it as "not quite as good as the beatles game, but one step closer to world peace".


Referring to ME in this post? I already posted a while back that I dug this game & find IGN's low score to not line up w/ my opinions.

7.5/10 would be more appropriate - would be closer to 10 if it had used the GH5 engine.
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post #60 of 88
11/5/09 at 5:06pm
You always talk up van halen though so even a 7.5 is low from you. And when are you going to like Boston?

Well I got my game and it works. So it was definitely the other disc. I guess when I tripped and knocked the wii down it damaged the disc itself. And now the annoying thing is I just tripped AGAIN, but luckily didn't knock it over. I am using a wired connection and so I keep tripping over the stupid cable.
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