Skip to main content

Van Halen Might As Well Jump into Guitar Hero

Van Halen Might As Well Jump into Guitar Hero

News dribblets about Activision’s Guitar Hero franchise are falling with the regularity of a broken faucet: first the company announces three new games—including DJ Hero—then casually mentions it’s looking into developing a Guitar Hero reality television series or concert tour package. Now, Activision has more-or-less confirmed what most people in the gaming industry knew already: following on the heels of Guitar Hero: Metallica, Activision is working on Guitar Hero: Van Halen.

Van Halen was, of course, one of the largest arena rock and FM radio acts of the 1980’s, and (despite a long period of inactivity and ongoing personnel shifts) has maintained considerable popularity, most recently demonstrated by a 2008 concert tour with flamboyant frontman David Lee Roth again at center stage.

Activision has not confirmed any tracks for Guitar Hero: Van Halen, but says the title should be ready in the second half of 2009—no doubt in plenty of time for the end-of-year holiday buying season. The title will reportedly include tracks from Queen, Weezer, blink 182, Queens of the Stone Age, Third Eye Blind, and The Offspring.

Personally, we were hoping Nerf Herder might make it into the mix.

Geoff Duncan
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Geoff Duncan writes, programs, edits, plays music, and delights in making software misbehave. He's probably the only member…
Volgarr the Viking 2 will take you back to your Ghosts ‘n Goblins days
A viking slashes a tree in Volgarr the Viking 2.

Developer Digital Eclipse is working on a surprising project: Volgarr the Viking 2. The 2D retro sequel will launch on August 6 for PlayStation 4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

The news is an out of left field reveal. The first Volgarr the Viking game released in 2013 and was made as an ode to 1080s classics like Ghosts 'n Goblins. Despite being a small release, it sold over 1 million copies over the past decade. As revealed during today's Guerrilla Collective stream, the series is coming back with a new sequel by Digital Eclipse, the team behind this year's Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story.

Read more
3 Days of Play PS Plus games to try this weekend (June 7-9)
Key art for Streets of Rage 4.

June 2024 is shaping up to be a pretty great month for PlayStation players. Not only are we coming off an entertaining State of Play showcase, but a new Days of Play initiative surrounding all the video game showcases this month is bringing a lot of new PS Plus additions with it. Many of those games hit PS Plus this week, and three in particular stand out to us.

For owners of Sony's oft-neglected PlayStation VR2, the first game is one of its rare exclusives that take full advantage of the headset's eye-tracking by seeing how often players blink. The next is a new PS Plus Essential game that's a revival of Sega's classic beat-'em-up series for the modern gaming era. Finally, the last title is an atmospheric and eerie fishing game that should entice fans of Lovecraftian horror.
Before Your Eyes

Read more
3 first-party Xbox Game Pass games to try this weekend (June 7-9)
Gears 5 Kait Hero Close Up

Microsoft will hold an Xbox Games Showcase and Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Direct. this Sunday. These shows will provide a much better idea of what to expect from Xbox over the course of the next year or two. That's really needed right now, as Microsoft has struggled to keep online discussions around Xbox positive as it went multiplatform with some games, laid off thousands of developers, and outright shut down the developers of Hi-Fi Rush and Redfall. Based on leaks and my personal expectations for the showcase, there are three games you can play on Xbox Game Pass this weekend to prepare for the event.

The first is the latest first-person shooter in a long-running series by id Software that might be getting a medieval-set spinoff. After that, we have the fifth entry in a sci-fi Xbox series that still looks fantastic on Xbox Series X/S even though it came out in 2019. Finally, you can prepare for Avowed with the latest RPG from Obsidian Entertainment, a satirical sci-fi game where player choice is critical.
Doom Eternal

Read more