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Everybody (Still) Wants Some!!
I know it looks like I don’t think about anything other than Van Halen, but when you’re a fan of something, your mind tends to go there a lot. And lately, my gray matter has been covered in red with black and white stripes. I offered some thoughts on the likelihood of a Van Halen edition of Guitar Hero a few weeks back, based on speculation and logic. Since then, Guitar Hero World Tour was announced, upping the ante to four players for the franchise. Hey…suddenly, that doesn’t sound so bad from a VH fan perspective. I have officially changed my tune.
Activision released an image of the GHWT guitar controller just the other day, and that got me thinking when I read a bit about it. In addition to the standard five buttons, there’s a touch-sensitive pad that spans the same five colors. (If you look closely you'll see the colors in the same sequence around the edges of that tactile pad.) You’ll apparently be able to slide on that section to affect notes, adding more expressive movements to the GH arsenal that better mimic real-life guitar techniques like bends and slides. That's always one of my frustrations as a real guitarist -- there's more to playing guitar than just holding down strings.
Oh, and you can tap that pad to enter notes. Apparently.
Tap? Like, with two hands? Yeah, I think I know what you’re talking about.
Then I looked at the rest of the guitar. Generic Strat-style shape? Check. New Star Power button where the big black humbucker would be? Yep. All the 360 controls stacked to look like a single volume knob? Mmm-hmm. This all looks kind of...iconic.
How easy would it be to create a striped paint job on one of these new controllers and repackage the whole thing the way that Aerosmith got its own faceplate? Eddie Van Halen’s company is part of the Fender family, and Fender is on board for Rock Band, but that license might not be exclusive, and the EVH brand isn’t currently represented in Rock Band anyway. I would not be surprised to see them broker a separate deal just for the Van Halen license.
Well, you tell me -- do you see what I see?
Hey, it’s all anecdotal. What do I know? I'm a fan and I don't have any insider knowledge of what's going on in the boardrooms of Activision or on the tour bus of Van Halen. But when you’re trying to make a theory fit, you’ll take anything.
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Sl8ter13
July 06, 2008 at 10:34am
Huh, I didnt know that Dan. You do know more about Van Halen than me. I did see them in Sleep Train outside of Sacramento last year and that concert blew my mind.
Dan OXM (not verified)
June 30, 2008 at 3:36pm
Two things: That's not a re-creation; that's one of Ed's touring guitars from the early Hagar days. I went with the 5150 Kramer because it most closely resembles the guitar controller.And the VH song in GH2 was a cover -- the Kinks originally wrote and recorded "You Really Got Me" -- and that's how they were able to get around it, doing the "as made famous by" thing with a WaveGroup cover. VH did many covers -- four or five appear on Diver Down alone!
shoedog
June 29, 2008 at 3:27am
Dan, the similarity is pretty striking. If an GH-VH edition came out, I would be very stoked and would have no problem laying out the coin for it. Now, if I could just keep to my practicing of the real thing, I might be able to nail down Jingle Bells by December! :P
Steakslave
June 29, 2008 at 12:55am
I'm pretty sure that Van Halen was not in GH2. I'm also pretty sure that Metallica will be the next band to get their own GH game. Or are you just refering to the possibility of a Van Halen song being in GHWT and VH based peripherals?
Crusaderman83
June 28, 2008 at 4:39pm
isn't van halen already in GH2 so they should be in GH$ forsure
Allanon6666
June 27, 2008 at 8:33pm
That would be pretty cool to see a VH version of ghwt, but there is still the issue of buying a new drum controller. Why did rockband have to botch the design? /sigh, oh well, with all of the cool things I keep hearing about ghwt I might just buy it anyway, especially if the repackaged it VH style.
Sl8ter13
June 27, 2008 at 11:15am
Why do you have a picture of a recreation instead of the original frankenstrat?
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