Guitar Hero: Aerosmith (GH:A henceforth) was developed by Neversoft (PS3 & XBox 360), Vicarious Visions (Wii), and Budcat Creations (PS2), and released by Activision in the last week of June (and August 6th in Australia).  Like previous Guitar Hero games, GH:A is available as a standalone game as well as a bundle, which comes with the game and an Aerosmith-styled wireless guitar controller.  As always, this review will focus on the XBox 360 version of the game (though there is little significant difference between platforms).

Story:  GH:A focuses on Aerosmith’s lengthy career, starting at their humble beginnings playing in high school gymnasiums and progressing ultimately to their induction in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.  In between sets, Steven Tyler and Joe Perry (the band’s singer and lead guitarest, if you’re more of a John Tesh fan) talk about life in the band and their rise to fame.  To be honest, though, I skipped these — I’d rather be playing songs instead of listening to these two talk.

Graphics:  The overly-cartoonish style is identical to Guitar Hero 3, and you’ll see characters and guitars from that game in this one.  Aerosmith is, of course, represented by their digital likenesses — the old-as-dirt versions, that is.  At least they’re honest, I suppose.  Each venue is new, though, recreated from old photographs and YouTube videos (though littered with Aerosmith set dressings).  Once again, the fretboard backgrounds are far too busy, and there’s been several times I’ve missed notes in a song because the garrish fretboards were too distracting.

Gameplay:  Following the Guitar Hero formula, you play a setlist of five songs — this time, the first two songs are from bands picked by Aerosmith, such as The Clash or Joan Jett and the Blackhearts (in which your guitarist will be one of the staple GH characters), and the final three songs are Aerosmith songs.  There are six setlists in total, with the last featuring a Guitar Battle (introduced in GH3) against Joe Perry.  There are four difficulty levels:  Easy, Medium, Hard, and Expert.

The difficulty in GH:A has been toned down quite a bit from GH3.  The non-Aerosmith songs are laughably easy, even on Expert.  The Aerosmith songs offer more of a challenge, but thanks to the band’s bluesy pop-rock riffs, aren’t controller-throwing frustrating.  The note charts for the songs seem to have gotten better since GH3, but still has an occasional oddly placed note here and there.

Sound:  Quick, name your favorite Aerosmith song.  Most likely, it’s not in the game.  Most of the band’s songs featured are their older, lesser known works.  Considering that this game is aimed towards teens and young adults, it’s kind of puzzling that the songs most familiar to this age group aren’t in there.  Despite the lack of known music, though, the songs are quite solid and enjoyable.  There’s a nice selection of songs from the other bands, as well, my favorites being The Cult (who seriously need to be in more music games) and Run-D.M.C. (proving that rap can work in a guitar-based game).

It ultimately boils down to whether or not you like Aerosmtih.  If you can’t stand them, then it’s obvious this isn’t the game for you (to be fair, there’s none of their weepy late 90’s power ballads in here, so don’t hold that against them).  Personally, I like the mix of music, but my only real complaint is that there’s not much of it — there’s only 41 songs on the disc, with only 29 being Aerosmith (or Joe Perry solo works).  Why so little music from a band whose history spans well over thirty years?

Multiplayer:  Offline, you can play with a buddy, though there is no co-op career as in GH3.  Online, you can play a few different modes.  You can co-op play a song toghether with a friend or random stranger, and you can play ranked or unranked face-off and guitar battle matches.

Online works very well, with no lag.  The better-balanced difficulty makes for matches that can be easily accessible to all instead of the super-hardcore players.  There doesn’t seem to be a lot of players online, though, so it may take a while to find matches during non-peak hours.

Achievements:  Many of the awards can be earned from progressing through the main game and hitting a few easy targets, such as hitting all notes in a song (any difficulty) and playing all the encore songs.  Multiplayer achievements are simple to obtain, and should come to you in no time.  All in all, it’s a very reasonable set of achievements that won’t take too long to pad your gamerscore.  For a full list of GH:A achievements, you can view the list at XBox360Achievements.org.

Intangibles:  Rock Band’s Fender Stratocaster guitar controller works in GH:A, so you won’t have to worry about getting a Guitar Hero guitar if you don’t have one to play this game.

-  One of the achievements is called “March 19, 2001″.  That was my 22nd birthday.

- The next band that will be getting its own Guitar Hero game is Metallica, which is currently planned for a March ‘09 release.

The Bottom Line:  Guitar Hero 3 really soured me on the franchise, especially after playing the far superior Rock Band.  I approached GH:A with reluctance, fully prepared for an underwhelming experience.  But… I was impressed.  I had… well, am still having fun with this game, despite the little flaws here and there.  I really wish there were more songs on the disc, especially more well-known Aerosmith songs, but what we’re given is a good selection that I’ve come to enjoy.  Online multiplayer, especially the Mario Kart inspired guitar battles, are really fun to play.  Overall, it’s a good offering and a step in the right direction for Guitar Hero — I really hope that the upcoming Guitar Hero: World Tour utilizes GH:A’s small improvements and balanced difficulty.  For the small amount of songs, it’s not really worth a full $60, but if you can find it used for half that price, I’d definitely pick it up.  That is, of course, if you can deal with the Bad Boys from Boston.

7.5/10, for some good music and enjoyable online matches, but loses a bit due to graphical presentation and a very small setlist.

If you liked that, try...

1. The Guitar Hero III Review
2. The Rock Band 2 Review
3. Dave Navarro Promotes Guitar Hero
4. Guitar Hero, Commodore 64 Style
5. The Rock Band Review

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