Guitar Hero: Aerosmith

"A surprisingly lazy effort that even Aerosmith's most die-hard fans might want to simply rent"

As a person relatively new to the music game genre, I played Guitar Hero 3 with no idea what to expect, and ended up really liking it. At this point I've gotten as far as my limited skill will let me, (I'm still stuck, and may always remain stuck, on the final 3 "Hard" tracks and about half way through Expert mode) and with all the upcoming excitement about the incredible-looking GH4, I decided to pick up a copy of Aerosmith to get myself some practice with new songs and to have some more fun with the GH formula.

Unfortunately, it was apparent almost immediately that I wasted my money. The menus were given a color swap but remain pretty much identical to Guitar Hero 3, as do the game's "loading tips," although a couple new Aerosmith-themed "loading tidbits" were added in there. The visual presentation (remember, this is the Wii version) is awful. The characters, especially the Aerosmith guys, look extremely poorly designed, and rather than looking cool, the people performing the songs you're playing look...frankly, disgusting. The crowd's a pixelated mess, and even though a couple new camera angles were thrown in there, the animation's gotten, if possible, even worse, and it's just not, at all, a nice game to look. No, visuals aren't too important in this genre but when they become a distraction by being so ugly, it's a problem. To make sure I wasn't crazy I popped in Guitar Hero 3 to check and sure enough, Aerosmith just looks uglier. The game's developers, Vicarious Visions, was admittedly busy developing the Wii version of Guitar Hero 4 as well as the DS Guitar Hero On Tour so is it possible their resources were spread thin? Yeah, but that's not really going to fly. Not when the game's THIS ugly.

Another downer is the music...admittedly, I was pretty unfamiliar with their music, but I wasn't necessarily a fan of many of the bands in Guitar Hero 3 and I ended up loving the game. Aerosmith, though, is just not a good fit for Guitar Hero. Despite their "rock and roll" status, these songs really aren't as guitar-heavy as you'd think. There are uncomfortably long stretches in some of these songs where there's no guitar at all, and you have to sit there and watch the blank note screen scroll go by while you watch the awful-looking characters up on stage play their instruments or the pixelated crowd dance. In others, the guitar work's very repetitive, resulting in you repeating the same notes over and over again. The boss battles (all but one) have been entirely axed this time around, and even though this game, unlike the Wii version of Guitar Hero 3, features stereo sound, the age of many of these songs (30+ years) means that they don't sound as good anyway due to the much more limited recording technology available at that time. As a result of all of this, the energy level here's just extremely low. It's not all that exciting. The songs...to me, were just forgettable. To Aerosmith fans, I'm sure they'll initially love playing some Aerosmith songs in GH at first, but it quickly becomes clear that Guitar Hero needs a much more energetic set list...Aerosmith's got some great chill-out songs here but nothing that even comes as close to being as loud or exciting as playing the likes of Killswitch Engage or even Weezer in Guitar Hero 3.

The game's story mode works exactly the same as it did in Guitar Hero 3, except instead of the brief cartoon sequences from that game, we're treated to incredibly brief and unsatisfying interviews with the band. As a non-fan of Aerosmith I found them mildly interesting, although they're so short that I was left wanting more. Big fans of Aerosmith hoping for some never-before-heard info will also be disappointed, the majority of these interviews consist of nothing that you can't have simply read on Wikipedia years ago.... I liked the cartoony story from GH3 better.

The difficulty's been toned down a bit as well. It still presents a challenge (for me, at least) but people who have actually completed the monster that was Guitar Hero 3 will likely breeze through Aerosmith, possibly without even losing once.

It's not all bad, however. The Wii version, like Guitar Hero 3, contains online play, something now-rival developers Harmonix didn't even bother to do for the Wii version of Rock Band, and the same Guitar Hero gameplay remains intact, which is as fun as ever. But It's just not fun to play these songs. The game lacks energy, the songs are all either Aerosmith or groups chosen by Aerosmith, (so the entire game sounds the same,) the graphics are awful, the Wii Remote noise has been changed to a much more obnoxious twanging, (it's a feature I actually liked in GH3, not so in Aerosmith) and overall it's the same as Guitar Hero 3, but on a MUCH smaller scale...only around 40-something tracks isn't great, especially when they all sound the same. Only 1 boss battle, extremely short interviews with the band (although longer ones can be unlocked) and when they couldn't even update the loading tips to say anything new...it just reeks of being an uninspired effort. Don't play this, wait until Guitar Hero 4 (or Guitar Hero World Tour as they're calling it, although if Activision's not careful they'll confuse people who are looking for "the real" Guitar Hero 4, especially with all these spinoffs they keep throwing out there...) because Guitar Hero 4 looks to be truly incredible. Guitar Hero Aerosmith may be worth a rental for real fans of the band, but everyone else needn't bother. The game's perfectly playable and it's a winning formula, I just didn't have much fun with it.

Note: As far as buying this game with the guitar....those new to the series on Wii would be much better off picking up the Guitar Hero 3 guitar bundle, despite how cool Aerosmith's looks, because as of right now Activision doesn't yet sell Guitar Hero 3 as a standalone game, so once you get tired of Aerosmith's short track list you'll be wanting to play Guitar Hero 3...which means you will have no choice but to buy the game with its guitar, despite the fact that you already own a guitar. But that's alright, new people to the series should pick up Guitar Hero 3 anyway, it's a vastly better game.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 07/08/08

Game Release: Guitar Hero: Aerosmith (US, 06/29/08)