Beginning this review, I thought it appropriate to recite a line from the Aerosmith song Jaded, “you got your mama’s style, but you’re yesterday’s child to me.” It will become apparent by the end of this review why these lyrics seem a little too true to the game. Guitar Hero: Aerosmith for the Nintendo Wii (also available on PS3, Xbox 360, and PS2) is the latest in the Guitar Hero series. This iteration, centered around yup, Aerosmith’s music and influences is more of a stand alone expansion then a new Guitar Hero title, much like Guitar Hero: 80’s was to Guitar Hero 2, Guitar Hero: Aerosmith is to Guitar Hero 3.

If you are new to the whole Guitar Hero thing, check out my review of Guitar Hero 3 on andPOP.com for an explanation of the game as a whole, after all, GH: Aerosmith is exactly the same as GH3 in terms of graphics, sound, control and game play. Basically with this title, Activision has told the world that there is a near-limitless supply of Guitar Hero titles on the horizon, after all, if they can make a game for Aerosmith, why can’t they do the same for most other bands?

The basic gist of the game is that you follow Aerosmith through their career starting with their first gig, stopping at all their most memorable venues and playing songs either by the band, or by bands that Aerosmith has played with or were inspired by. The game is exactly like Guitar Hero 3, with a few little changes. Each set has five songs, the first two by bands that Aerosmith played with or were inspired by and has you playing as whichever character and guitar you choose from the Guitar Hero 3 line up, followed by two songs being played by Aerosmith (complete with really scary and lame motion capturing) where you control Joe Perry, then finally an Aerosmith encore where the background changes ever so slightly (a gripe I had with GH3). After each set, we are given a live video documentary of the band members talking about what they remember from each venue, kind of pointlessly segwaying into the next stage without actually telling you why you’re playing there.

Now, I’m a fan of Aerosmith, and I think Joe Perry is one of the most underrated guitarists in mainstream music, but I can’t help but wonder why Aerosmith was chosen to be the first of Guitar Hero’s band exclusive titles when there are so many other bands with more illustrious guitarist out there. I almost feel like Aerosmith might have paid Activision to make this game for them as a kind of history of Aerosmith interactive documentary. The Aerosmith characters were given their own unique motion captured animations, but while I’ve seen Aerosmith perform live before, the moves they were given in the game feel weak and generic, as well, I noticed that with the Wii version at least, the movements the band makes on stage seem a little to scripted to the specific song and jagged, with Perry’s mouth not moving enough during backup singing and Tyler’s mouth moving WAYYYYYY too much. I mean, Steven Tyler’s lips scared me in real life, with GH: Aerosmith, they scare me that much more. It also seems weird that none of the Aerosmith musicians look like they’re enjoying themselves on stage.

The song choices seem a little off to me as well, with fan favourites like Amazing, and Crazy missing from the set. With over 40 songs, this is one of the smallest set lists for any Guitar Hero title, but with it comes all the characters, outfits, styles (I still don’t really understand the difference between outfits and styles), guitars, and finishes, PLUS the addition of two new unlockable characters, Joe Perry and DMC. What I don’t understand is why we can’t have the other guitarist and bassist Brad Whitford and Tom Hamilton as characters when they already have their own moves and models built in the game as backup musicians.

Activision tried to update small aspects to the game as well, simple little things like finally giving the Steinberger guitar a couple of finishes instead of the plain black (hey, its my favourite guitar in the game, alright?), making the drummer look less robotic (but at the same time, making him look so fluid that he doesn’t really seem to be hitting the drums at all), and changing the camera a little to look more like a guy filming on stage, annoyingly panning and zooming on random parts of Tyler’s anatomy. They also tweaked the cheat entering mode in which you press two frets and strum to input a single part of each code, no more speed entering, plus it sounds pretty cool. Unfortunately they didn’t fix all their problems, with slowdown on the Wii making some songs much harder than they should be to play along with and a poor online connection system. It actually took me 12 tries of random stranger selection to finally find someone to play against and even then lag was a big issue.

All in all I’m not sure why this game was made, the difficulty level is much too low for the average Guitar Hero fan, and with each song being mostly solos or repetitive riffs, they do not really increase in difficulty as you progress through the game. For a first time GH player though, the difficulty level might be perfect. Playing Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, I couldn’t help but think the band is a little too full of themselves to think that people would want to buy a game just for their music, but then again, if you didn’t like their music or really really like Guitar Hero, you wouldn’t go out and pick this title up anyways. For me though, my favourite Aerosmith game is still Revolution X, the arcade light gun shooter from 1994.

Guitar Hero: Aerosmith is everything Guitar Hero 3 was, but replaced with Aerosmith characters and music, period. With special guest DMC who either flies away or stage dives at the end of his song, and only about 40 songs to play it’s hard to justify paying full price for what feels like half a game.

Graphics: 2.5 / 5.0
Gameplay 3.5 / 5.0
Sound 4.0 / 5.0
Replay value 2.0 / 5.0






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