Guitar Hero: Van Halen

Guitar Hero: Van Halen is similar to the preceding band-centric game, Guitar Hero: Metallica, featuring support for four players in a single band on lead and bass guitar, drums, and vocals. The game is based on the engine originating from Guitar Hero World Tour, and thus does not feature the additions that are present in Guitar Hero 5, such as drop-in/drop-out play.

Only the current members of the band—Eddie Van Halen, David Lee Roth, Alex Van Halen and Wolfgang Van Halen—are playable avatars in the game for the Van Halen songs; former band members Sammy Hagar, Gary Cherone and Michael Anthony are not included. The band appear as they did in 2009 but, by completing challenges in the game, players can unlock their older appearances from the “spandex era […] with the big hair and tight pants”. Despite not being alive during this period of the band’s history, Wolfgang Van Halen’s avatar has a retro outfit copied from the dice-shirt-and-patchwork-jeans getup worn by his father in the video for “Panama”.

A demo of the game was released to Xbox Live on December 9, 2009, featuring two Van Halen songs, “Eruption” and “Panama”, along with Weezer’s “Dope Nose” and Killswitch Engage’s “The End of Heartache”