Anyway, don’t let my horribly corny jokes dissuade you from checking out Van Halen’s edition of Guitar Hero.  It offers much more depth than you’d expect from an installment of Guitar Hero that is more of a side project, and it totally shames the Rock Band offering of The Beatles, at least in this humble reviewer’s opinion.  While it clearly isn’t as polished or as much of a value as Guitar Hero 5, if you love Van Halen or need more Guitar Hero fun, it is a clear “must buy” for you.

As you can imagine from the premise of the title, Guitar Hero: Van Halen focuses primarily on the band.  Almost every significant single is included, from the pure arena rock nature of “Jump” to the… uh, other arena rock songs, like “Hot For Teacher” and “Jamie’s Crying.”  Happily though, some deeper tracks are included, such as the ultimate shredding song, “Eruption,” which is as ridiculously difficult as you would expect.

A note right up front about the song selection – The game only features songs and avatars of the current  lineup of Van Halen.  Given the band’s notoriously challenged relationship with past contributors, this probably isn’t shocking to most of you reading that actually enjoy Van Halen.  Almost every David Lee Roth song of significance is included in the 25 Van Halen tracks, and the avatars are of Roth, Eddie Van Halen, Alex Van Halen and Wolfgang Van Halen.

When it comes to the other 19 tracks, they were picked out by the 18-year-old Wolfgang, the son of Eddie, and it shows.  Weezer, Foo Fighters, Blink-182, Jimmy Eat World and Fountains of Wayne are artists you would normally associate more with modern rock, but I’d argue that they have more in common with Van Halen than, say, Twisted Sister, or some other hair band from Van Halen’s era.  Case in point – While era contemporary The Clash have a song on the game, “Safe European Home” is more gritty punk than the refined, arena rock sound of Van Halen.

The difficulty of Guitar Hero: Van Halen is definitely a tick up from the most recent rhythm game releases, Guitar Hero 5 and Rock Band: The Beatles.  Then again, that is probably to be expected with the tracks featured.  The guitar and bass portions feature lots and lots of notes, especially if you’re trying to segue from The Beatles, who feature fairly simple transitions and chords.

However, while the game is incredible at its core goal – Roth-era Van Halen excellence – it doesn’t incorporate some of the features from Guitar Hero 5.  I suspect that development on this game began far before the completion of Guitar Hero 5, which might explain why some of the new tweaks weren’t incorporated.  (It might also explain why there is a Foo Fighters song present, even though Dave Grohl got pissed that his former band mate was a playable character in Guitar Hero 5.)  For example, there is no drop-in play, and while you can chose or create an avatar to play as, you can’t swap out other members of the band.  On the plus side, the crowd sings along during certain choruses.

One other sticking point is the price – $50 for the Wii edition.  Eech.  For practically the same amount, Guitar Hero 5 is a much better bargain, since it provides almost double the amount of songs: 85 to 45.  Although Guitar Hero: Van Halen was a throw-in for purchasing Guitar Hero 5 early and features half the songs, this is not reflected in the price at all.

Blast Factor: Your enjoyment of this game though, as with any of these band-specific rhythm games, hinges on your enjoyment of the track list.  I love Van Halen, so I loved this game.  If you love Van Halen, the higher price tag will probably not dissuade.  In addition, if you love modern rock and alternative, this is definitely the best track list next to Guitar Hero: Modern Hits for the Nintendo DS.

Guitar Hero: Van Halen is available on the Wii, Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 systems, at a cost of $49.99 and $59.99 respectively. This review concerns the Wii version. A copy of this game was redeemed via the Guitar Hero 5 offer for review purposes; the official retail version is not available until December 22.

There is a slight contradiction in the idea of a full band game filled solely with songs that were initially chosen for their prominent guitar parts, and because of the need to balance the fun across four controller parts instead of one, the songs that are on the game aren’t necessarily the most fun from Guitar Hero, but are all more or less the most fun for the most people. I was disappointed by the absence of songs like “My Name is Jonas” and “Cliffs of Dover,” (both from Guitar Hero III), which have fun parts specifically for the guitar, but would understandably be less fun on the full-band set up. I was particularly disappointed that “Sweet Child O’ Mine” was not on the Smash Hits play list, but to be fair I wouldn’t want to be in a room with somebody trying to sing like Axl Rose. The songs that did make it on to Smash Hits are some of the more well-known from the Guitar Hero repertoire, as well as some of the more challenging (expert-level “Through the Fire and the Flames” is still mind-blowingly impossible, even with the addition of the new neck-slider feature), and most of the songs are pretty well balanced across all four instruments (a notable exception is “YYZ,” which doesn’t have a vocal part, but is hella fun on every other count). Unfortunately, there is no downloadable content for Smash Hits to fill in any notable gaps that you might find in the set list, so read the back of the box before you pick it up so you make sure you know what you’re getting.

The game’s mechanics, graphics, and features are very much like a no-frills Guitar Hero World Tour, with comparable character customization, band creation and music studio features. Though the game’s tracks are all master recordings, there are no “celebrity appearances” or boss guitar battles as there have been in past iterations of the franchise (sadly, no Slash, but thankfully no Ted Nugent). Again, this is not the full Guitar Hero experience, just the major bullet points condensed into a single game. If you really want the CG chick from Paramore to play onstage with your Avatar, the other games are what you’re looking for. This game is for the Guitar Hero junkie (that is to say: me) who has “Killer Queen” and “Fire and the Flames” on his iPod and  really would like to try the vocal part for once.

With this in mind, Smash Hits does do us all a favor by dispensing with the trouble of unlocking all the songs in career mode before being able to play them casually in quickplay. All the songs are available in quickplay from the get-go, because Activision realizes if you buy this game, you just want to play with your rhythm game addict buddies and want to skip over the easy setting and pop songs and crank some Skynyrd on expert without all the hassle of having to think up a band name and play boring songs for an hour to get there. There is a career mode, but even that is streamlined; more complex set lists are unlocked according to a cumulative score from all available songs rather than just the last setlist you played. This means you can unlock a wider variety of songs through good performance on easier songs, and not just adequate performance on the hardest available setlist.

The gameplay itself the tried and true Guitar Hero model with no real differences. The songs have been updated with some of the more complex note patterns that appeared in World Tour, so there are some slight differences between these songs and their originals on the older Guitar Hero releases. The addition of a few neck-slider bars isn’t enough to make the experience of playing the same songs on a new game completely fresh and revolutionary, but it does keep things from getting boring, and the differences between songs are substantial enough that it shows that Activision didn’t just re-package some old games and try to sucker you in to buying them.

Perhaps the only new addition to the actual gameplay screen is a meter that tells you how many out of five stars you have earned so far in the course of gameplay, and how far you are to earning the next one. If this sounds familiar, it’s because Rock Band has had that feature from the beginning, though I don’t mind it when Guitar Hero tries to be more like Rock Band. There are some of the old Guitar Hero-related irritations like distracting designs on the note highway, or flashes of lightning when you gain star power, but these aren’t any better or worse than they were in World Tour, and have been greatly reduced in scale from earlier versions of the game.

Blast Factor: If you haven’t already decided whether or not you really want Guitar Hero: Smash Hits, you probably don’t. At a full $50 price tag, it costs probably about as much as a used collection of Guitar Hero I, II, and III, or a brand new Rock Band II or World Tour, all of which would offer a greater variety of songs and downloadable content, and would be better especially for newcomers to the rhythm genre. However, if you like what you see and have been dying to play some of these old songs with your rhythm game buddies, then by all means, grab it up, plug it in, and rock out.

Guitar Hero: Smash Hits is available on Xbox 360 and PS3 for $49.99, and on the Wii for $39.99

Tradmork reported that Activision, makers of the highly successful Guitar Hero series have recently filed a trademark for the term “DJ Hero.”

The official documents, filed February 8, state that Activision is looking to use the term in conjunction with “computer game software and related instruction manual sold together as a unit. Interactive video game programs; computer game discs; downloadable software for use in connection with computer games; video game controllers; interactive video game comprised of a CD or DVD sold as a unit with a video game controller.”

While there’s no official word from Activision about the possible turntable simulator, it should be noted that gamers have been clamoring for a title similar to what is being hinted at for quite some time. Check out the custom Guitar Hero turntable Gizmodo reported on at CES this year.

This is far from a confirmed game announcement. In fact, Activision has filed multiple trademarks dealing with the Guitar Hero franchise merely to protect the name. Ever hear of Guitar Villain? What about Drum Hero? They may not be games, but Activision holds the rights to these names just like they now hold the rights to DJ Hero.

You know we’re gonna be following this one closely.

That said, Neversoft should have done a hell of a lot more testing.

Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground brings new features like “nail the grab” and the speedy aggro kick to the table, but two main negatives prevent the game from being truly great.

First of all, there are several graphical glitches like getting stuck behind objects that slow things down. This leads to the second problem — not made any better by the graphical glitches. The goals are often ridiculously hard to get passed on the lowest, “amateur” mode. The other two levels of difficulty are “pro” and “sick.” Indeed it would be absolutely sick to accomplish some of the goals on “sick” mode.

Proving Ground breaks the game up into three distinct player paths, which involve career aspirations, rigging and tough street skating. You’ll find yourself going after all three to keep things interesting and to learn new skills.

The “separate but equal” game mode model is a sidestep from previous Hawk games that usually bind random skate life aspects into a linear game. Now you have the freedom to focus on what interests you. I liked going after the career mode, making videos and competing against other skaters, and then I would fall back on my “roots” and do some street goals like taking back the local skate park from hoodlums and skate checking people across the road.

The story is fun, and like I said it’s really deep involving a ton of professional skaters like Jeff King, Mike Vallely and Dustin Dollin. The game just doesn’t go far enough. You’ll spend several hours battling a whiny little runt with a tricked out car who’s supposed to be a great skater. You complete against him in two big competitions, but the game doesn’t cut away — you never see him compete or land and big tricks. It’s just assumed. The game has a million videos showcasing every goal and pro you’ll encounter, but the videos are just highlights that don’t have any bearing on the game. There aren’t any real epic story cutaways.

The competitions are a joke. They’re like every other goal — you get timed and have to rack up points, or you fail. I wanted to see some X-Games, live on ESPN style scenes. Tons of pros lend their voices, so have some of them do commentary … just make the scenes more interesting.

Still, rigging is the weakest point and makes everything else look gold. The editing mode is really buggy, and the things you build never work quite as intended. This made the “Jeff’s Demo” goal really hard to get past.

Throughout the game, you’ll find yourself trying to time tricks just right for magazine photo shoots and videos. This is a fun element that adds a lot to the standard gameplay. The standard gameplay is fun in and of itself. Proving Ground recreates an interesting map of Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington D.C. As expected, every jersey barrier, curb, fountain, electrical wire, train track and federal government monument is usable for air, grinding and all kinds of tricks.

Once I created my character and put him in Globe gear, I had plenty of fun trying to master a backside indy 720, but in the end, this became a game that I picked up to let of 10 minutes of steam, get really frustrated, throw the Sixaxis and try again and again until I barely scrape by the slash grinding the pool or rigging some god-awful contraption.

Proving Ground is fun, and most of the graphics look beautiful. But you’re gonna throw the Sixaxis. Poor bastard of a controller never gets a break.

Quick hits:

Publisher: Activision
Developer: Neversoft Entertainment
Platform: PlayStation 3 (reviewed), Xbox 360, Wii, Playstation 2, Nintendo DS,
Genre: Sports
Players: 1-2 (Online 2-8)
Launch Date: September 12, 2007

Playability: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Learning Curve: 2 out of 5 stars
Sound: 4 out of 5 stars
Graphics: 4 out of 5 stars
Overall: 3 out of 5 stars

Guitar Hero III boasts a brand new set list of over 60 songs and a ton of downloadable content.

If you have never played a guitar hero game, here’s a quick overview: you take the role of one of the game’s playable characters and battle through the career mode on four difficulties, ranging from easy to expert. There are five buttons on the guitar representing different frets. To play a note, you have to hold down the fret button and strum the guitar. Sounds easy right? Now just do that about 2000 times in 5 minutes. In this game, practice makes perfect, and sticking with it is the key. The learning curve is difficult , but once you get the hang of this game, you will be quite pleased. On to the review:

Guitar Hero III tried to go more in depth with a career mode, but this title isn’t going to be known just for a great storyline. The game starts off with you and some friends starting a band, and after playing five or six songs you move onto the next level and the next set of songs. You go through it all, including your garage band days, your music video and playing in sold out arenas. The storyline in general is quite humorous at times and is fun to watch as the comic book-like characters show their emotions.

While the Guitar Hero franchise isn’t known for breakthrough graphics, but for the spectators Guitar Hero III has done a great job of making the characters look better and the places where you perform are much more detailed. After the prequel was attacked for poor graphics you can tell they really worked to squelch the critics.

The song list is in a word, Excellent. The wide variety of songs make this a very versatile list and there’s something on it for everyone. Whether you’re an 80’s rocker or a fan of the metal, you will be pleased. Some bands featured in the game include Guns and Roses, Slipknot and Kiss. The bonus songs feature some obscure titles you probably have never heard of, but they are very fun to play.

The multiplayer has been improved on huge levels. There are now more ways to embarrass or cooperate with your friends while playing. The multiplayer provides a great way to spend a night with a friend. On the other hand, if your friends have something better to do, you now have the choice of signing into Xbox Live to find a partner or an opponent or bandmate.

Cooperative mode allows two players to play at once. In most cases one player will take the role of the bassist, and one will be the guitarist. In some songs, rhythm guitar and lead guitar are played. Most achievements will come through playing co-op songs and trying to earn huge note streaks and point totals, and the ever-sought after 1,000,000 points.

The Face-Off modes return. You can either try to match your opponents skill level in a Pro Face-Off, in which you are both given the same set of notes, or you can battle them in a Face-Off in which you can go at different difficulties and battle for highest score. This mode represents a great way to show off.

The new “Battle” mode allows players to instead of achieving star power (a power-up which doubles your note-score) you can gain the ability to attack your opponent. You can break their strings, make their note-screen flash, and even raise the difficulty level they are playing on. This was an instant fan-favorite with the people on Xbox Live.

Guitar Hero III is a great game, and an addicting one at that. It’s great fun to play, especially with a bunch of friends and once you start, you won’t stop until you’re the best.

Quick hits:

Publisher: Microsoft
Developer: Neversoft Entertainment
Platform: Xbox 360, Wii, PS3, PS2
Genre: Music
Players: 1-2
Launch Date: October 28, 2007

Playability: 5 out of 5 stars
Learning Curve: 4 out of 5 stars
Sound: 5 out of 5 stars
Graphics: 4 out of 5 stars
Overall: 4.5 out of 5 stars