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Guitar Hero: Aerosmith Review July 21, 2008 Brett Todd |
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Summary: Fans of Aerosmith may be tempted to pick up the latest release of Guitar Hero -- which is focused primarily on the rock band -- but with just 41 songs Brett says you may want to think twice before picking up this game.
 Guitar Hero: Aerosmith Review | Page:: ( 1 / 4 ) |
Walk This Way
With that said, GH: Aerosmith does have one thing going for it over its most recent predecessor, GH III: Legends of Rock--more sensible difficulty. Where GH III was absolutely nutty hard on the higher difficulty settings, GH: Aerosmith dials the challenge back to pretty much what was offered in GH II. So while gameplay is identical to previous GH games in that you still match colored fret buttons on a fake guitar with colored circles on a scrolling fret board on the screen and strum away, the hammer-ons and pull-offs here are a lot easier on the wrists. Only masochists will have an issue with this, as Hard and Expert on GH III were so tough that they just about ruined the entire game. The only lingering annoyance here is the gulf between Medium and Hard. There shouldn't be so much of a jump. After the mild step up between Easy and Medium, you hit a wall of spread-out chords with Hard that's spectacularly frustrating for noobs. As with the earlier GH games, it feels like there's a difficulty setting missing somewhere.
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Unfortunately, the trade-off for playability is a disjointed soundtrack. I've been a lukewarm-hot Aerosmith fan since high school back in the early 80s, so I was really disappointed that the game didn't include more of the band's output, and that the songs that were there were presented in such a garbled manner. Neither the band's 70s heyday or 80s-90s renaissance is really featured here. The campaign purports to take you through Aerosmith's entire career, with levels based on key moments such as the group's first gig at Nipmuc High School, their record-deal set at Max's Kansas City, and their big 1984 reunion gig at the Orpheum in Boston, but the songs for each segment are spread all through the band's career due to leaning on recently recorded live tracks and aren't fully representative. So you never get the feeling like you're progressing through Aerosmith's 30-year life on the charts.
At Nipmuc, for instance, you play a re-recorded "Make It" from 2008, "Draw the Line" from 1977, and "Uncle Salty" from 1975. At Max's, you play a re-recorded "Movin' Out" from 2008, "No Surprize" from 1979, and "Sweet Emotion" from 1975. I can understand why Aerosmith wouldn't have wanted to include the original "Make It" and "Movin' Out," as they were on the band's terribly recorded first album. But using new live cuts is a poor decision as they sound awfully modern and very different from anything dating from 1973. Using only a new live take on "Dream On" in the Great American Band level is another big let down, although at least this recording is more vibrant and nostalgia-oriented.
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| Page 2 | Page:: ( 2 / 4 ) |
What, No "Lord of the Thighs"?
Only the Orpheum level seems properly planned out and executed, as it's based on the band's 80s reunion gig and the tunes are all latter-day comeback tracks like 1987's "Rag Doll," 1989's "Love in an Elevator," and 1993's "Livin' On the Edge." Even then, though, the game omits a lot of big hits from this era and beyond. I sure never want to hear the treacly "Angel" again, but it's one of the biggest power ballads of the 80s, so it's strange not to find it here. Same with "Dude Looks Like A Lady," "Janie's Got A Gun," "What It Takes," "Cryin," "I Don't Want to Miss A Thing," "Jaded," and "Just Push Play." A lot of these tracks haven't aged well, and god knows that all copies of "I Don't Want to Miss A Thing" need to be stuck on a rocket and fired into the sun, although they should still be represented in any full-priced game purporting to deal with Aerosmith's entire career. It's galling that there are so many holes here, especially when the game does manage to throw in kinda-Aerosmith filler such as Joe Perry Project songs from the early 80s.
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The completely non-Aerosmith songs here are even more spotty. Each level starts off with a pair of tunes supposedly from acts that influenced Aerosmith, but they actually seem more like odds and ends that Activision had the licenses for but never bothered to use in a previous game. They don't really fit here, and also seem anachronistic in relation to the time periods represented in the level themes. How Cheap Trick's "Dream Police" from 1979 could have anything to do with a high school gig in 1970 is beyond me. Same with how a 1988 hit like Joan Jett's "I Hate Myself For Loving You," could be connected with a gig in New York in 1972. Still, at least these tunes are more tolerable than the lame covers. "All the Young Dudes" sounds like a parody of the Mott the Hoople original, and Dave Davies should sue over the evisceration of his great guitar work in the game's wimpy cover of "All Day and All of the Night."
Aerosmith should probably sue, too, for the ridiculous way that the game depicts them. Each level kicks off with videos of the band members separately reminiscing, but these clips are edited together in such a clumsy way that the comments don't make any sense. You'll get goofy stories only partly told, Steve Tyler going on about some incident where a guy tried to shove his fist into his mouth, and a bunch of other absurd commentary that is best skipped over. Some of the scenes are so dark that you can't make out any details, either. Joe Perry often looks like he shot some of his clips in blackface.
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Other than that, though, this is boilerplate Guitar Hero. The graphics and animations are kind of poor, if not bad enough to complain about. Aerosmith itself looks pretty good, at least, although this digital take on Tyler is awfully restrained and drummer Joey Kramer looks like the world's oldest N'Sync wannabe thanks to his fruity soul patch. The only real irritant with the overall presentation is how the volume goes up by about a third every time you move from an opening song by a non-Aerosmith act to a tune by the big guys. That gets more than a little aggravating, especially if you're playing late at night with a cranky wife sleeping upstairs.
| Ballistics Report | Page:: ( 3 / 4 ) |
Pros
Aerosmith Tunes:
Although they aren't all here, the selection of Aerosmith songs is pretty compelling for fans of Boston's best-known band aside from, uh, Boston.
Dialed-Down Difficulty:
GH: Aerosmith is easier to handle than GH III: Legends of Rock, which was too tough on harder difficulty settings to be any fun.
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Cons
Bizarre Song Selection:
A lot of big Aerosmith songs have been omitted or re-recorded. How the tunes are organized and presented leaves a lot to be desired, as well.
Lame Non-Aerosmith Tunes:
Lenny Kravitz, Cheap Trick, and Joan Jett top the list of non-Aerosmith songs that fill out the track list, along with a few sub-par covers.
Short Song List:
A full-price game like this should have more than 41 songs.
| Final Verdict | Page:: ( 4 / 4 ) |