reviews

Game: Guitar Hero: Aerosmith
Genre: Music
Platform: Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, PS2 (Reviewed on 360)



When Guitar Hero: Aerosmith was revealed a while back as the newest entry in the Guitar Hero series, I’m pretty sure I wasn’t alone in being completely underwhelmed by the announcement. My problem wasn’t with Aerosmith specifically, as I’ve always liked them, but the fact is that Guitar Hero as a franchise has steadily gone downhill over the last year, and instead of doing anything about it, Activision has decided to just release as many Guitar Hero games as humanly possible. As a result, we have yet another half-baked entry in the once-beloved series, and another personal reminder why Rock Band is now the superior game in the music genre.

Before anyone starts labeling me a hater, let it be known that Guitar Hero and I go way back. When the game was first released in 2005, I was working at GameStop, and in the weeks leading up to the launch, a ten-song demo was sent to us to put in the store’s PS2. I only had to pick up that plastic guitar controller once to become hooked. It was one of the few games I’ve ever played that I felt an instant affinity for; I loved it from the start. At the time, I couldn’t afford to buy my own copy, so I used to come into work early and leave late just so I could spend more time playing the same ten songs over and over again. Guitar Hero II was even better, and I ended up playing it endlessly on both the PS2 and, later, the Xbox 360. To put it simply, I just couldn’t get enough of Guitar Hero.



However, as we all know, things have changed. Harmonix jumped ship to go make Rock Band, and Activision, meanwhile, has been doing what they do best: milking this series for every last cent it can get. That means that instead of getting weekly DLC installments like Rock Band or making any actual advancements in the genre, we get mediocre titles like Guitar Hero: On Tour and Guitar Hero: Aerosmith.

Everything seemed fine at first when I booted up Aerosmith; some familiar characters, lots of unlockables, more outfit choices than ever before, and a Career Mode just waiting to be played. I even felt a faint glimmer of hope as I started my Hard career, hoping that maybe, just maybe, some of the old Guitar Hero magic would still be there. However, within minutes I was reminded why I abandoned Guitar Hero in the first place.

The game’s biggest problem is that the songs are just not designed in a way that makes them intuitive or fun to play. I don’t know how to explain it any better than this: it just doesn’t feel right. It was a problem in Guitar Hero III, and it continues now in Aerosmith. For example, "Train Kept A Rollin", which is a lot of fun to play in Rock Band, is a total chore in this game. How is that even possible? It’s not a difficulty thing, because I can certainly hold my own when it comes to guitar games, and the difficulty level has been noticeably turned down from GHIII. With Guitar Hero II, I could have played even the hardest of songs until my hands fell off; they were just so enjoyable. That feeling, sadly, is gone. It just doesn’t feel right, plain and simple, which makes trudging through the career not as much fun as it should be.



To add insult to injury, the Career Mode of Guitar Hero: Aerosmith only features 30 songs. Thirty. That’s it. You can buy ten more songs in-game from the Vault, the new store, but that only makes a total of forty. Just to refresh your memory, Guitar Hero III had over 70 songs, and the upcoming Guitar Hero: World Tour will have 85. That leaves Aerosmith with around half of what it should have, and yet it still carries a $60 price tag. I’m sorry, but that is not acceptable in any way, shape, or form. Maybe the higher-ups at Activision, with their oodles of cash and multi-million-dollar annual bonuses, have forgotten that we don’t all have money to burn. At any rate, they already swindled me into buying the half-assed Guitar Hero Rocks the 80s last summer, and I don’t want to see any of you make the same mistake with this game.

Despite all of these issues, I still made my way through the career five-starring just about every song, having a bit of fun, and getting ready to see what the final song was going to be. Of course, then a random Boss Battle with Joe Perry came out of nowhere and I nearly threw my guitar at the TV. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Battle Mode is one of the worst things to ever happen to Guitar Hero, and should have no place in the Career Mode. Why should I have to beat Joe Perry at his own song before advancing to the last couple of songs? It’s more of a headache than anything else, and certainly not something I ever want to do again.



Since this review has been nothing but bitching, let me tell you about some of the things the game did get right. Catering the career mode completely to Aerosmith made for a unique experience, and the documentary-style tidbits between venues are pretty neat—but if you don’t like Aerosmith, you’re not going to give a damn. Like I said earlier, there are plenty of options as far as guitars, outfits, characters, and skins go (maybe to make you forget that the game only contains 40 songs). It should be known that there were still some songs—very few, but some—that actually felt like older Guitar Hero gems, like “Dream On”. It’s just a shame they were so few and far between.

Guitar Hero: Aerosmith is not a terrible game; it’s just lackluster. Dedicating an installment in the series to just one band feels like a bad move on Activision’s part, and we know this isn’t the last we’ll see of that. It seems like they should have just offered this catalogue via DLC for Guitar Hero III, instead of giving us a full-priced game with half the content that won’t even appeal to those who aren’t hardcore Aerosmith fans. It offers some fun for a day or two, but after running through the career once, you’ll probably never want to pick it up again. I genuinely hope that one day, the Guitar Hero series returns to its former glory, but today is not that day. Stick with Rock Band, kids.

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