Guitar Hero: Aerosmith WROCKS... or something

Before he left, Bill dumped a copy of Guitar Hero: Aerosmith on my desk. Since I'm tasked with reviewing it I guess that means I need to suck it up and play it.

And?

It's... uh, surprisingly okay. Not good. Never good. But okay. If you like Aerosmith at least a little bit. With 31 tracks (at least in the main game) I'm having trouble figuring out what justifies someone spending $60 on the game. But, I won't deny that, almost against my will, I got into playing Love in an Elevator, Ragdoll, Sweet Emotion, etc.

Some plusses: They've brightened up the color pallette (at least I think they have). So while it's the same interface and engine as Guitar Hero III, the colorfulness of Guitar Hero II is back. The notion that in moving from venue to venue you're retracing the track the band took on its route to "super stardom" (that hurt to type) is as good a model for progression to follow as any. It's tough to say at this point, but the note charting does seem *a little* better than in GH3. It's not Rock Band quality, but GH3 was an absolute mess in this regard so anything better is good. (I'm playing on Hard right now, so we'll see if the same holds true in Expert.) There are some good non Aerosmith tracks that you play as a 2-set warm-up act in each of the game's venues. (For some reason I can't name a one of 'em off the top of my head.)

Some minuses: As much as I like some of the non-Aerosmith tracks, they shouldn't be in the game. They should be in GH4 where people who, you know, hate Aerosmith or won't pay $60 for an Aerosmith edition, might actually get to play them. If you're gonna go the route of a band exclusive GH game, then do it and don't apologize for it by throwing in some extra non-Aerosmith stuff that won't do anything to sell more copies of the game. As noted above, I'm okay with the notion of the "tour" following Aerosmith's progression as a band, but I think if you're gonna do that then have the songs and the band match the era. So, when you start out at a high school venue (the name escapes me), let's see a young Aerosmith playing their older stuff. It would just add to the flavor and the theme in a way that you don't get when you're playing the same venue with a geriatric Aerosmith playing stuff from 2007.

Ultimately, if you like Guitar Hero and you like Aerosmith and don't mind paying $60 for about 30 tracks, then hey, this is your game. Run don't walk and all that. But let's face it. You probably like Rock Band better than GH (or, at least, you should), don't like Aerosmith *that* much and resent the notion of paying full price for a game with just over a third of the tracks Rock Band 2 or GH4 are purported to have. In that case, just skip it.