“Let’s get ready to rock!!!” Don’t you ever undermine this statement because in this Guitar Hero you’ll be rocking all night long – that’s only if you can keep you fingers from melting off.

According to Joystiq, Activision has confirmed to them that Guitar Hero: Van Halen is indeed in development and will release sometime during the second half of this year.

Activision could not confirm any songs, and only said the game will contain Van Halen’s “greatest hits,” as well as guest acts such as Queen, Weezer, Blink-182, The Offspring, Queens of the Stone Age, and more.

However, they were told by Activision’s Senior Vice President of Global Brand Management that, “… this is definitely Van Halen, not Van Hagar,” which is a plus since David Lee Roth is back with the band and they just finished a successful tour.

In addition, they revealed that there’s a very slim chance that the rockers might show up at E3 2009.

When an artist produces enough hit songs they combined them into a ‘Greatest Hits’ collection, or collaboration. Now, it seems that Activision, along with the guys at Beenox, have plans to produce a ‘Greatest Hits’ collaboration of Guitar Hero.

In an interview with IGN, Paul Gadbois, a producer at Beenox, revealed their plans for Guitar Hero: Greatest Hits. According to Gadbois, the game is scheduled to launch on all major consoles this June; it will also be for the ’super’ official price of $60 on all nex-gen consoles – expect for the Wii – and for the PS2 and Wii it will go for the price of $40.

And the game will also feature a 48 master tracks featuring songs like;

• “Barracuda” by Heart
• “I Love Rock N Roll” by Joan Jett and The Blackhearts
• “I Wanna Rock” by Twisted Sister
• “Killer Queen” by Queen
• “Killing in the Name” by Rage Against The Machine
• “Nothin’ But A Good Time” by Poison
• “Them Bones” by Alice in Chains
• “Through the Fire and Flames” by Dragonforce

There have been many World War II games over the years, but one game has been know to be the king of the genre and that game happens to be Call of Duty. But, that isn’t this game? Yeah, I know, but this game is, as you may already know, trying to take the market that was and still is owned by the Call of Duty game franchise. But, what makes this game any different than Call of Duty? That is why you may need strength to get through this review because it’s going to be a hard fight. Just like the Call of Duty games this game is a first-person shooter that takes place in the World War II timeline, but this game is different, it has a squad-based tactical aspect to it much like Rainbow Six Vegas series, but lets just say that’s another story for another day.

Set back and enjoy the show and watch out for the fire works -

Personally I am in love with World War II shooters and this maybe one of the greatest World War II shooter ever made or at least the best one I have ever play. This game has the most realistic gore from limbs tearing off faces exploding and guts spilling all over the place this game has it all. Talk about a time well spent, the guys at Gearbox really captured the look and feel of World War II and did not forget about the blood, they really didn’t. This game has a far contrast from the gray, dreary color palettes of Normandy that many of us are so accustomed. They remade everything that made this part of history something to remember so from us to you guys over at Gearbox studios.

Maybe in another game, but good try -

This game also has it’s many problems and one of them, which really shouldn’t be a problem, has to be the games “Action Camera”, when you score a sick kill or you decide to pop some German heads the game zooms in on that kill and it slows down time. Well, this is a good thing but this also doesn’t feel like it should be apart of this game. I mean really its a World War II squad-based tactical first-person shooter can someone please put an parenthesis on the SQUAD-BASED. It’s cool and all, but if it wasn’t a World War II squad-based tactical first-person shooter it will be alright with me.

Bomb… wait my control isn’t working -

The next part that really grinds my gears has to be the game controls, basically every first person shooter has a basic control set. I really can’t figure out why these controls are so frustrating I really don’t know why Gearbox couldn’t of just used the simple control set like everyone else? This control mapping is crazy -not in a good way crazy but it’s crazy alright. Instead of crouching or throwing a grenade the game slaps us back into cover and I was just in cover. Maybe they should of taken something out of the book of the Rainbow Six series…

Collective studying almost over so here’s the story -

BiA: Hell’s Highway is based on an actual WWII Allied offensive called Operation Market Garden, which was a plan to end the war before Christmas of 44. This game pits you as the 101st Airborne division as you take role of BiA stalwart Sergeant Matt Baker. I know sounds good on paper, but imagine how good it will be in the game. I’m not trying to reveal any of the story here, but I remember one of designers being quoted stated that “by the end of the game you will cry” and you know what, it put a really big lump in my throat.

Score: A-