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Guitar Hero: Aerosmith
The title of Guitar Hero: Aerosmith is missing something: the Roman numeral III. Building directly on the codebase of the previous game, GHA doesn’t attempt to hide its lineage, but it does make a few noticeable improvements. Aerosmith’s moves have been freshly motion-captured (lead singer Steven Tyler is practically a cartoon character anyway), while camera angles and stage lighting have both been enhanced. (The monster-jawed lead singer and barrel-necked drummer from the GHIII house band return, but they’ve both been improved, too.) Crucially, the difficulty has been adjusted: whereas GHIII wanted you to bleed, GHA simply expects that you come ready to rock.
You play the first two songs of each of the game’s six stages as an opening act for Aerosmith, playing tracks selected by the band, and then Aerosmith takes the stage for the final three songs in each set. The brief but enjoyable 30-song career mode traces the romanticized story of the band’s rise from high-school talent show to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
No downloadable tracks are planned, but the disc packs 40 songs (plus Joe Perry’s boss-battle track), and 24 of those are Aerosmith tunes — several deep-cut album tracks and nearly all the big hits. Thankfully, none of the band’s fluffy, overproduced pop hits of the ’90s appear here; it’s all the rootsy, bluesy, ballsy stuff that the boys from Boston do better than just about anybody. Tracks like “Love in an Elevator” and “Uncle Salty” make the game consistently satisfying and fun to play because the music is so well-crafted to begin with.
In fact, the band has roughly 140 songs to its credit; so why did Neversoft pick “Train Kept a Rollin’” — the only Aerosmith track that appears in Rock Band, and a cover of a Yardbirds tune besides — for the big finale? It’s a too-familiar-to-be-fun ending to an otherwise worthy extension of the Guitar Hero III experience.
on Xbox 360
+ Great presentation — lighting, animations, cameras are all tops.
+ None of the band’s power ballads show up.
- Minor evolution of gameplay for full price.
? Where’s “Dude (Looks Like a Lady)�
8.0
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Toutso
July 29, 2008 at 6:56pm
Dude, GH is suppose to be challenging. If it was the same difficulty, you would already be able to be the next GH game. I wasn't good at it until I kept practicing, now I play very good on expert.
Spybreak
July 09, 2008 at 3:08pm
Its good to hear they balanced out the difficulty and I'm an Aerosmith fan so I'll prob grab it when the rice comes down.
ill_sue_ya
July 06, 2008 at 2:19pm
sl8r13 you are an idiot. all guitar hero s should have 1 unnatureally hard tune. their should be a guitar hero buckethead or guitar hero dragonforce.
ethanjude
July 03, 2008 at 5:05pm
I can't make up my mind if the achievements are an apology for GH3's merciless cheevoes, or if it is an attempt to attract achievomaniacs into buying this game because they are more attainable. I'm sure the answer is a little column A, and a little column B.
LIG GUNNER
July 03, 2008 at 12:23pm
Overall, this game is decent for Aerosmith fans. There is one major flaw; Walk this Way was recorded as Run DMC singing lead. He sucks. And, they didn't include "Dude". I feel with the priveleges of the Aerosmith license presented to Neversoft, they could've done more to make this an A+ title.
sneaky77
July 03, 2008 at 8:13am
I love this game, I think Neversoft finally got the hard difficulty balanced compared to GH3. If you are not an aerosmith fan skip it. I am glad they included more obscure songs that are not the ones everyone knows, the songs are good.
HandzThatKillz
July 03, 2008 at 6:40am
Umn, I'm not really looking forward to buying this game, I think I'll better wait for GHWT.
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