3. Story walkthrough
Before you start reading
This page is ONLY for solo career or career related achievements! You can find instrument specific songs on the next page and band career/related achievements are on the pages afterwards!
Before you start playing a song
We will start off with the tutorials. Each instrument has a few small explanations, which will help you master the gameplay if you are new to the series. To start with those, select 'Career' from the main menu and then 'Tutorial'. After finishing one lesson, you'll get your first achievement. With this, it proves that you don't need to finish all lessons but it could be quite helpful to new players.
Complete a tutorial level.
Just like in any other Guitar Hero game (besides Guitar Hero II and Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock), you will need to create your own rocker. While doing so, you will also need to create a custom tattoo and two custom instruments (guitar and drums). From the Main Menu, select 'Backstage' and scroll down to 'Rock Star Creator'. There you can edit your skin, hair, facial hair, etc. When you come to the menu 'Body', select 'Tattoos'. There's no specific body part you need to put your tattoo on, so you can just do it wherever you want. Save it to unlock an achievement and continue editing until you come to the menu 'Instruments'. You can edit guitar, bass, drums or mic, but only drums and guitar needs to be custom instruments. Save it for your second and third achievement.
Continue playing to unlock this secret achievement. (Secret)
Continue playing to unlock this secret achievement. (Secret)
There's only one thing left to edit right now, your band. From the main menu, select 'Settings', then 'Band Info'. There, hit the yellow fretbutton (or press Y when using a standard controller) and change the name to 'Van Halen' (no brackets!). Save it for another easy achievement.
Continue playing to unlock this secret achievement. (Secret)
Career
Since you need to play through career five times for a completed game, we'll start off with the guitar (since it the most used instrument). From the Main Menu, select 'Career', select 'Single' and at last 'Guitar'. If you are comfortable with the Expert difficulty, select it. The career starts with 2 opening songs, which will net you the 'Intruder'-achievement after beating those two songs.
Complete the career intro.
When you're going through the setlist, you'll unlock additional venues. Most of the venues contain achievements. After you complete a song, you can replay the song on any venue you've already unlocked. After you've played a song in every venue, you'll unlock another achievement. Below the listed achievements you can find a list with each venue in order you unlock them through career. Please notice you have to beat every single song to unlock any of the listed achievements. I added some additional information such as the requirements to unlock the venue or if it is a Van Halen gig. Please note that the stars require can be different from how many stars you obtained in the intro songs (I had 2 times 5 stars).
Complete a gig in West Hollywood.
This will unlock as soon as you've beaten all songs in West Hollywood.
Complete gigs in Los Angeles and Rome.
This will unlock after you've beaten all songs in Los Angeles & Rome.
Complete gigs in Berlin and New York City.
This will unlock after you've beaten all songs in Berlin & New York City.
Complete a gig in Dallas.
This will unlock as soon as you've finished all songs in Dallas.
Complete gigs in London and The Netherlands.
This will unlock after you've beaten all songs in London & The Netherlands.
Complete a majority of the gigs. (Band or Solo)
This will unlock after you finished all songs after the 6th venue, which should be Berlin.
N° | Name | Requirements | Van Halen-songs |
1 | Van Halen Intro | Start career on any instrument | Yes |
2 | Los Angeles | Beat the 2 intro songs | No |
3 | West Hollywood | Earn at least 6 stars | Yes |
4 | Rome | Earn at least 10 stars | No |
5 | New York City | Earn at least 18 stars | Yes |
6 | Berlin | Earn at least 25 stars | No |
7 | Dallas | Earn at least 31 stars | Yes |
8 | London | Earn at least 37 stars | No |
9 | The Netherlands | Earn at least 44 stars | Yes |
10 | The Early Years | Earn at least 57 stars | Yes |
While going through the setlist, complete all of the Van Halen songs (if you haven't done so) to unlock another achievement and finally finish career. Difficulties are stackable so if you managed to finish this one on Expert, you will get the achievements for lower difficulties as well. If you managed to 5-star everything on Expert: GOOD! That's another achievement for you!
Complete all Van Halen songs. (Band or Solo Career)
Complete a career on Beginner. (Band or Solo)
Complete a career on Easy. (Band or Solo)
Complete a career on Medium. (Band or Solo)
Complete a career on Hard. (Band or Solo)
Complete a career on Expert. (Band or Solo)
5 star all Van Halen songs on Guitar Career. (expert)
With guitar career finished, most of the career-/solo-related achievements are out of the way. Let's move on to bass, the easiest instrument of all. If you’ve finished guitar career on Hard, you might consider taking this to the next level, Expert. Proceed through the career just like you did while playing the guitar. You don't get any achievement related to playing bass, except when you finish it on Expert and 5-starred each song.
5 star all Van Halen songs on Bass Career. (expert)
Just like in Bass career, you won't get any achievement relating to the fact you’ve just finished career on drums. BUT, there is an achievement which requires you to complete drum career on Expert+. You don't have to 5-star each song on this difficulty, but it's required to 5-star every song on Expert using the drums.
Complete a career on Expert+. (Solo Drum)
5 star all Van Halen songs on Drum Career. (expert)
We saved the best for last, vocals. In my opinion it’s the hardest career since I can't hold a tone for 2 seconds. For those who have a really powerful voice, this might be your first career to finish on Expert. 5-starring each song rewards you with an achievement, finishing the career on vocals won't. But after finishing this career (and only if you completed each Van Halen song on each instrument; which you already should have), forces another achievement to unlock where you get a nice 100 GamerScore for.
5 star all Van Halen songs on Vocal Career. (expert)
Complete all Van Halen songs on every instrument. (Guitar, Bass, Drums, and Vocals)
Mop Up
Note: All achievement descriptions are mentioned below the achievements themselves.
Unlock Eddie's Frankenstein guitar.
To unlock the Frankenstein-guitar and this achievement, you need to earn 80 stars, which means beating 14 songs with a 5-star rating. You only need to unlock this, buying this is optional.
Unlock all Van Halen characters.
Finishing each career with at least 200 stars will unlock the achievement for UNLOCKING (not buying or playing with) all Van Halen characters.
Continue playing to unlock this secret achievement. (Secret)
This achievement requires you to play a song that isn't a Van Halen song with the guitarist of Van Halen: Eddie. You will need to get at least 90 stars in Guitar career (or finish 18 songs with a 5 star rating) in order to unlock Eddie as a playable character. You can unlock this along with the 'Break That String'-achievement (see the 'Song Related-Achievements'-section for more information).
Continue playing to unlock this secret achievement. (Secret)
This achievement requires you to play a song that isn't a Van Halen song with the drummer of Van Halen: Alex. You will need to get at least 100 stars in Drum career (or finish 20 songs with a 5 star rating) in order to unlock Alex as a playable character.
Continue playing to unlock this secret achievement. (Secret)
This achievement requires you to play a song that isn't a Van Halen song with the vocalist of Van Halen: Dave. You will need to get at least 100 stars in Vocal career (or finish 20 songs with a 5 star rating) in order to unlock Dave as a playable character.
Continue playing to unlock this secret achievement. (Secret)
This achievement bounds the 3 previous achievements but requires you to play a guest song with Wolfgang (the bassist) as well. Just like Alex and Dave, you will need to get 100 stars in Bass career to unlock him as a playable character.
Note: This achievement can also be obtained by playing a guest song with one Van Halen-member on all instruments. But why not make it fun? :D
Continue playing to unlock this secret achievement. (Secret)
Continue playing to unlock this secret achievement. (Secret)
Continue playing to unlock this secret achievement. (Secret)
Continue playing to unlock this secret achievement. (Secret)
I combined these four achievements because they all require you to do the same thing: while playing at the 'The Early Years'-venue, you will notice it will be the younger forms of every Van Halen-character. You just need to beat one song on that list to unlock the achievement which relates the band member to its instrument (Eddie for guitar, Wolfgang for bass, Alex for drums and Dave for vocals). You can also wait until you've beaten the career for each instrument and pick them as your playable character, but why make it difficult if you can make it easily?!
Continue playing to unlock this secret achievement. (Secret)
This achievement is similar to the 'The Memory Remains'-achievement in GH: Metallica. For those who didn't play that particular game, this is what you need to do. Each time you beat a Van Halen song (this only counts for Van Halen songs), you'll get the option to view some facts about that particular song. Whilst on the setlist, highlight any song that you've beaten and click the blue fret button. Watch the entire video to unlock this easy achievement.
This walkthrough is the property of TrueAchievements.com. This walkthrough and any content included may not be reproduced without written permission. TrueAchievements.com and its users have no affiliation with any of this game's creators or copyright holders and any trademarks used herein belong to their respective owners.