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Guitar Hero: Aerosmith – Xbox 360 Review

July 10th, 2008 Rich Reed Leave a comment Go to comments

Guitar Hero has become a mega hit franchise and with World Tour going toe to toe against Rock Band. They seem to have it all. It will be interesting to see the set list for World Tour during E3. You would think with so many fans and gamers wanting more, any Guitar Hero game would deliver, right? Well, if you are talking about Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, read the full review to see why the franchise should stick to what works best.

Gameplay

Guitar Hero: Aerosmith starts off interesting enough as you follow the band to their roots and first real gig. From here you need to play a set and play an encore and you unlock the next area of the game. This time they use a small intro of the guys animated and it’s interesting. Then it follows that up with a very short video. My first thought after seeing the video was why do they have subtitles going at the bottom of the screen? Well the reason is Steve talks so quietly it’s almost needed to understand him. You may have seen the commercials for the game where the band becomes motion captured replicas of their counterparts and enter the stage. It looks neat but if the band was really that eager and hands-on, I couldn’t tell it by the videos. The videos certainly lacked any real enthusiasm.

I know the guys spent hours with NeverSoft in motion capture suits to try and bring the realistic angle to the game. I wish they would have been a bit more hands-on with the music selection for the game. Granted, there are staples that were needed like Toys in the Attic, Livin on the Edge, Walk this Way with Run DMC and Kings and Queens. They mix in other bands this way you play as the Guitar Hero characters until you reach an Aerosmith song. Then the next 3-5 songs you play as the bad boys of Rock.

I had some major problems with the other bands picked for an all Aerosmith game. Run DMC without a doubt should be in the game and I was glad to see that they were. Depending on what story you hear, Run DMC helped introduce Aerosmith to a whole new listening demographic. Or Aerosmith helped Run DMC. My point is they need to be in the game. The 30 or 35 other percent of the game features music from bands like Stone Temple Pilots, The Black Crowes and Even Lenny Kravatiz. Nothing past 1992-93. The only two bands that sort of fitted the theme of the game were Ted Nugent’s Cat Scratch Fever and Joan Jett’s I hate myself for loving you. Both have never opened for Aerosmith. On a positive note there are some classic tunes from the band, but a few are edited and some of the bands biggest songs are missing which makes no sense.

41 songs total are in the game including the ones from the shop or vault. Gamers are going to feel cheated. The game is rather easy even on the harder levels. Last time I was making a few comments that GH: III seemed unbalanced. They seemed to reverse it. The game is fun but short and makes me wonder if this was not just an easy way for the GH series to put out another title before the big World Tour? I expected more and I know others that I spoke with said the same thing. I understand that a few of the band’s songs could not be added due to content and to avoid a bad rating. I just think it should have had more songs and seemed short in the career mode.

Control

The controls in the game are great and work just fine the game works with any of the guitars from GH or Rock Band. I did notice that the star power seemed more responsive during online play from GH III. I have never had any complaint about the wireless guitar in the GH Bundle although at times I do wish the whammy bar was a little longer. Overall the controls are great and respond well during offline and online play.

Xbox Live

It has the same online set-up as the last game meaning no complete co-op career mode over live. You can pick any of the modes and play against ranked or unranked players. I personally think the battle mode is lame. The faceoff and co-op are good but the way you have to remake the lobby or do 7 songs in a row need reworked. It needs to be like Rock Band and I am not trying to be funny. In Rock Band you can take your time picking a song and take a break and have fun. In ranked matches there is a time limit and it makes sense. I tried it out with a friend and we felt rushed. I went into the ranked matches and it seemed harder to find players. Overall the guitars seemed to respond better online and some other issues fixed. I still think they need to really blow us away with Guitar Hero: World Tour but we will see.

Graphics

Guitar Hero: Aerosmith Screenshot

 The graphics look good. The band may even look better in cartoon-style than in real life. I am joking but the look of the game fits and the stages look great. It has a bit more cartoon-style for my personal taste but overall works. I really enjoyed the ending of the game and thought it really was well done.

Guitar Hero: Aerosmith Screenshot

 The video concept of the band telling their stories was a good idea, but somehow seemed either rushed or poor audio which made it seem more filler than for the fans. I think they had fewer options with gags this time around due to the fact the game had to be focused on one band. Good overall but not mind blowing and is not the game you’ll show off for the graphics.

Guitar Hero: Aerosmith Screenshot

Audio

The songs sound great and well done including the cover versions. There was one song that seemed a bit off but you will have this with covers. The music from Aerosmith sounded great and overall no complaints.

Replay Value

I think the main issue with this game is it’s geared to a group that has a huge life span. 14 studio albums is a ton of material and for the game to only feature 19 of them. This cuts down on the replay value. I also think some gamers will (rightly so) feel cheated that they charged full price for this one. The other big thing is that most of the achievements can be earned in playing the easy and medium career except for a few. I thought there was a glitch the first night when achievements popped left and right until I read each one. You will notice many are marked secret. Trust me they are simple. Even the co-op ones are easily unlocked. Even a die-hard fan of the band will have problems finding a high replay value and it’s a shame. I don’t know what happened with the songs or lack of but it hurts the replay value.

Bottom Line

Overall Score 7.0/10.0

Additional Comments

The game lacked the songs needed to be worth the price paid for. Throw in the fact only die-hard fans are going to know or care about some of the songs selected, you basically have a well made music game that lacks music. I find it hard to believe that any band would be happy with the finished product. I also really need to question if this was a smart move on NeverSoft and Red Octane’s timing for a game that seemed thrown together? With their sights set on capturing the Rock Band crowd, I just think this was time to deliver a great game not a rental. I would rethink games based on just one band the next time around. Unless you want to include enough content, it just seems cheap!

Links

Guitar Hero: Aerosmith Website

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Categories: Reviews, Xbox 360
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