"Walk This Way" right to Blockbuster, give the pimply-faced teen there $15.00, and enjoy the two days you have the game
Before the review starts, the most important thing to point out is what you're getting for your hard-earned $60.00 (in my case, it was $62.95 thanks to provincial tax). You'll get 41 songs, 12 of which are by supporting acts, AKA NOT AEROSMITH. There's six tiers in Career mode, 10 (I think) bonus songs, and some neat little videos and unlocks here and there.
I'm not going to go into all the details about Guitar Hero and how the game works. If you're reading this review, you probably already know about Guitar Hero and want to know if you should buy this game, or spend your money on more entertaining things like dirty magazines or a crapload of Mountain Dew to fuel your all night marathon of Halo 3.
Basically, Guitar Hero: Aerosmith is an expansion pack to Guitar Hero III. No, you don't need GH3 to play it, but it's basically the same game.
First, and probably most importantly for all the hardcore players, the hammer-ons/pull-offs have been tweaked to a GH2-like state, so people who were able to flail wildly on the very pretty, coloured buttons and nail the solo in Cult of Personality on expert will fail miserably here. Gone are the little kids from XBOX Live who think they are the next best thing because they got lucky and hit the solo in We Three Kings while their mom happened to be videotaping. There is a lot more skill required to solo in Aerosmith, which actually makes pulling off more complex riffs rewarding, but if you've been playing a bit too much GH3, there is a learning curve, and it is noticeable.
Another change in the gameplay are the band Animations. They are insane.
Perry jumps around the stage, Steven acts like a total nut job, and the rest of the band stands there playing like a bump on a log. Steve and Joe are the stars of the show. The mo-cap they did is remarkable, and it is a blast watching them.
The Career Mode, much like Guitar Hero III, is centered around your band's rise to fame. Actually, now, it's about Aerosmith. Kinda.
The six main tiers in Guitar Hero Aerosmith include two "Opening Act" songs, and three Aerosmith songs. Complete the two opening songs, Aerosmith comes out, plays two songs, and then you get the option of performing an encore, just like in Guitar Hero III. Play, the encore, a new tier opens up, and then it's just repetition for five more tiers. For the opening act, you can choose your guitarist (the entire roster of GH3 comes back, save for a few extras), but for the Aerosmith songs, you are restricted to Joe Perry and his rediculous fretboard. There is no story in Aerosmith, each new tier is introduced with a short, VH-1 like video with a description of the location you're about to play at, and the band talking about old times and remembering the "gigs" they played at said location. Speaking of gigs, the band is very careful to use the word "gig" around every corner. It gets annoying. Now that I pointed that out, you will notice it too :)
So, you play in Russia, a New York club, a High School, the "BIG GAME" (Super Bowl XXXV halftime show, which is not lisenced, and it is only called the Super Bowl ONCE by Steven Tyler in a bonus video), the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Ceremony...and a few other places that I don't remember. All of the places you play at are special to Aerosmith, but taking a closer look, many stadiums are simply re-skinned to be a different arena. The "Orpheium" Theatre (God knows I didn't spell that right) looks almost identical to the "Royal Odeon" from Guitar Hero III. Maybe it's because they are both theatres, but the similarities are there.
More returning features from GH3 are the Music Store, Boss Battles, almost the entire character lineup, most of the menus, the entire online experience, and the rediculous charting of 99% of the songs in the game.
We'll start with online first. Online is almost the exact same. Well, it is the same. Not a lot has been tweaked. Actually, nothing has been changed. Even the menus are the same. Sorry if you were looking for a revolution. I did notice there were a bit less annoying little kids online though.
Multiplayer on the same console has been changed a bit. You can now play Pro Face-Off on two different difficulties. This is cool if you want to show your friend how awesome you are at a certain song without alternating every five seconds. The scores are also balanced, so the person on expert doesn't have a guarnteed win if they play someone on easy.
The In-Game Shop (called "The Vault") houses practically all of the game's content, which can be bought with the money earned in Career mode. There are a ton of Aerosmith guitars, guitars from GH3, and even the Les Paul and Xplorer XBOX 360 guitar controllers, with accurate details right down to the XBOX guide button. The only catch is, it's impossible to buy everything from the vault with hard earned money. Unless there is an UNLOCK EVERYTHING cheat, be warned that you have to spend your money carefully. Even if you master all difficulties in the Career mode, you will not have enough cash to buy everything in the vault.
And now, the songs. 41 tracks are present in the game, about 70% are Aerosmith songs, and the rest are bands that were either influenced by Aerosmith, or bands that Aerosmith likes. One very notable band left out of this "friends of Aerosmith" group is KISS, which did an entire tour with Aerosmith in 2003. I heard it was because more people went for the KISS part of the show than the Aerosmith part...but I'm not going to start a huge discussion.
To keep it short, and without listing every song, roughly half of Aerosmith's career (1975-1989) is represented. No "Janie's Got A Gun", "Dude Looks Like A Lady", "Jaded", "I Don't Wanna Miss A Thing" (which is even referenced in one of the unlockable videos), "Crazy", "Cryin", "Angel".... I could easily go on. Sure, you get both versions of Walk This Way, but why is the Superbowl Halftime Show in the game, yet every song they played at the show (save for Walk this Way) is missing? It doesn't make a lot of sense. Oh, and Devil's Got A New Disguise. And they also could have easily included the two Aerosmith songs from past GH games (Last Child and Same Old Song and Dance) That's not in there either. As for the songs not by Aerosmith (Opening Acts), there are some awesome songs. Cat Scratch Fever, She Sells Sanctuary, and The Dream Police are just a few.
How do the songs actually play? Terrible. Random strums. Everywhere. I understand that the team wanted to make the game more realistic by including strums where Joe Perry actually strums, but on many solos, it kills the gameplay. Some songs are just not fun, and others, like the Joe Perry Boss Battle, are almost unplayable. Sure, it's realistic, but when Neversoft is trying to make the game accessible to everyone, this is truly a step in the wrong direction. However, even with all the chord-fests, many songs are extremely easy. Even on expert, the only song I didn't get five stars on was Train Kept A Rollin. Guitar Hero III pushed the envelope with ludicrous overcharting, but some of these songs are just plain retarded. Random strums in the middle of large hammer-on/pull-off sections, and simple sounding riffs are turned into finger-cramping orgies. I don't know about you, but I would like to keep my fingers for another year or so.
If you can't decide on whether to buy Guitar Hero Aerosmith, it all depends on if you liked Guitar Hero III. Other than the decreased HO/PO window, nothing has really changed. The menus are the same, the characters are the same, and the songs are still insanely over-charted. If you can somehow justify paying $60.00 for 41 songs (that's $1.50 per song, $0.60 more than RockBand DLC) , go ahead and get it. It's still the same gameplay you know and love from the Guitar Hero series, but that's about it. More of the same. Too bad that's not an Aerosmith song.