Same old song and dance

Author's Rating:

Pros: New songs, video interviews with Aerosmith

Cons: No co-op career, extremely similar to Guitar Hero 3, 32 less tracks than GH3

The Bottom Line: 
Great for fans of Aerosmith or those that want to play new songs in Guitar Hero, but otherwise avoidable.

Author's Review
Guitar Hero and Aerosmith. Some of the best in video games and music, respectively. Combined though, can they live up to their reputation?

My first though about Guitar Hero: Aerosmith was that I was having deja vu. Not too long ago, Guitar Hero Encore: 80's Edition was released. It was essentially Guitar Hero 2 with songs from the 80's, but it sold for the full price of a new PS2 game ($50). The game did not sell well because gamers did not want to pay the full price for GH2 with less songs. Unfortunately, it seems as if producer Activision has learned little since then. Basically, GH:A is GH3 with mostly Aerosmith songs.

For those that don't know, Guitar Hero is a music simulation game. The player uses the (sometimes) included guitar controller. On the screen during the game is a virtual guitar fretboard with notes (different colored circles) streaming down the fretboard. As the notes reach the bottom of the screen, the player must press the corresponding color on their controller and strum on the strum bar on the controller. The game tests your hand/eye coordination as you must constantly move your fingers around and on harder difficulties, move your entire hand up and down the neck of the controller.

Anyways, back to Guitar Hero: Aerosmith. As the title indicates, the game comprises of mostly, but not all, Aerosmith songs. Also included are songs by artists Aerosmith has either played with or they like, including "Always on the Run" by Lenny Kravitz, "All the Young Dudes" by Mott the Hoople, and even the version of "Walk this Way" that Aerosmith recorded with Run-DMC. There are 41 total tracks (which is significantly less than the 73 tracks included on the GH3 game).

The background visuals have the exact same graphics as GH3. Aside from the new venues, there are no changes. The drummer still has that rudimentary smirk on his face and the singer still holds his death grip on the microphone. This is all the same until Aerosmith takes the stage. All five members play their instruments with their favorite guitars, bass, and drum set (and favorite scarf on the mic in Steve Tyler's case). Also, what impressed me most, the band members move around in the same manner that their real life counterparts do on stage. Joe Perry wobbles around with his guitar and Steve Tyler leans the mic this way and that and constantly touches his face, all in time with the music.

When playing songs off of the setlist in Career mode, the user is at first only given two songs to choose from, neither of which are Aerosmith songs. Both of these songs are headliners, setting up the venue in the style of a concert. After these songs are completed, Aerosmith comes on stage and you become Joe Perry and play his parts of the songs. After two Aerosmith songs, you play an encore song. When this song is completed, the user is awarded with an interview with Aerosmith in which they discuss the upcoming venue (all of which are real venues that Aerosmith has played at). After the completion of each song, you are awarded money corresponding to how well you played and the difficulty setting.

The store in which you spend your hard earned money has few additions. The same guitars, guitar finishes, and clothing styles are available. The new additions include part of Joe Perry's guitar collection, more interviews with the band, extra songs, and instead of purchasable characters such as the God of Rock, you can now buy members of Aerosmith to play as.

The lack of any Co-op Career mode is upsetting. After I purchased the game, my girlfriend came over and we had planned on going through the game and playing some of our favorite Aerosmith songs. Unfortunately, we were only able to choose from ten songs. The rest had to be unlocked via single player. As a result, we had to wait a week until I was able to complete the Career mode as work and other necessities took priority over finishing the game.

The difficulty of the songs has been ramped down greatly. While it took me days to complete some songs on the expert difficulty setting in GH3, I was easily able to complete nearly every song on my first try in GH:A with the exception of the last song (an extremely difficult song written by Joe Perry, exclusively for the game).

The achievements are also significantly easier to get. Instead of having to "5 star" every song on a particular difficulty setting, you only need to achieve 5 stars on any one song on the medium or harder difficulties. With the loss of difficult achievements come funny and entertaining achievements, one of them being called "Dude Looks like a Lady" in which you must play any song as Izzy Sparks, a character which, as the name suggests, looks like a female. Nearly all of the achievements are named after an Aerosmith song.

Nothing has been changed regarding the online multiplayer. You go against an opponent and whoever has the highest score at the end wins. Also, you can play co-op online with someone; one person plays guitar and the other plays bass.

Aside from the new songs, this game is essentially Guitar Hero 3. I really only recommend this game for fans of Aerosmith. Otherwise, it may be more worthwhile to invest your money on the countless songs available from download for Guitar Hero 3.