Guitar Hero Aerosmith is in a weird position, it seems Neversoft didn't quite know what the audience was for the game. The game is loaded with a lot of Aerosmith's older guitar heavy tracks as opposed to their newer stuff, so people who know the tracks in the game most likely aren't the people who are going to be playing it. Besides that, the second major audience they would want to hit, the "Hardcore" Guitar Hero players find the game too easy compared to Guitar Hero 3.
The game is based off the Guitar Hero 3 engine, so it is no surprise that the game plays almost exactly the same with the notable difference being that the timing window has been made smaller for this version of the game. As usual, gameplay consists of hitting notes at the right time using the guitar controller and the gameplay remains fun and solid as ever. New venues, guitars, and UI changes all help to make the game feel more complete than the previous GH spinoff "Rocks The 80's" which was obviously just a reskinned Guitar Hero 2 with little effort put into it.
The game itself looks great and animates tremendously well. There are a lot of really cool song specific tweaks as well. Things such as Joe Perry using a talkbox, and Steven Tyler shaking maracas at the beginning of "Sweet Emotion." This really brings the feeling that Neversoft wanted to make sure that the game had a lot of real life authenticity. The audio is slightly better than GH 3, the most notable difference being that the mix on the songs is more even than the songs in GH 3.
The major deal breaker here is the setlist. If you are an Aerosmith fan you undeniably are gonna want to pick this up simply on the merit of how well the band is represented in the game. But what if you aren't a big Aerosmith fan? I personally only had a limited knowledge of Aerosmith prior to playing the game and still found it enjoyable. The game has some of their well known hits such as Sweet Emotion, Walk This Way, and Toys in the Attic and also has a lot more of their back catalog of songs as well. It really just comes down to what your taste in music is.
So, when it comes down to it your enjoyment level of the game will come down to two factors. 1) Are you a big Aerosmith Fan? 2) Are you a serious Guitar Hero player? If both of those apply to you, you probably have already been playing the game. If you fall into category one, than I would bump my score up to a B, but if you are only number 2 than you should take a look at my score below.
Verdict: C+
by Nicolas Perez
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