Review: Guitar Hero Aerosmith

Walk This Way? Possibly.

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

Review: Guitar Hero On Tour

Better Stock Up On Screen Protectors

When it was first announced that Activision was bringing Guitar Hero to the DS, there was a lot of speculation as to how it might work. Would they make a mini guitar, make it touch screen only, maybe even change the game up a bit? Well the solution that is presented in Guitar Hero On Tour is actually quite elegant and shows that the developer, Vicarious Visions, really put a lot of though into making this a faithful recreation of Guitar Hero to take with you on the go.

The game comes bundled with the aptly named "Guitar Grip" which has four fret buttons instead of the usual five found on the standard Guitar Hero controller. The grip itself is comfortable, but should only be used in about 30 minute increments with breaks in between (unless you would like your hand to cramp up.) The grip plugs into the GBA slot on the DS Lite, and is compatible with the old DS using an included adapter.

The game itself is surprisingly good. The setlist sounds a little offputting at first thanks to the inclusion of bands such as Maroon 5, Smashmouth, and OK Go. Even though they don't exactly scream Guitar Hero, the songs themselves are very fun to play thanks to so good decisions by the charting team. Thankfully there are harder songs though, my favorite being "I Don't Wanna Stop" by Ozzy, which has a crazy solo and will take even seasoned Guitar Hero players a couple of tries to pass the song.

Visually, the game is surprisingly crisp for a DS title. The characters and venues are impressive and the note highway itself is easily readable. Since sound is easily one of the most important parts of the game, it is a huge relief that the music sounds phenomenal for a DS game. It is a bit compressed, but not so much that the music is unrecognizable.

All in all, Vicarious Vision did a great job of doing the unthinkable and bringing Guitar Hero over to the DS. It captures the look and feel of playing Guitar Hero, has a good setlist, and is a technical feat on the DS. I do recommend buying some screen protectors, since the touch screen is used for stumming. Even if you are a diehard GH fan, I recommend giving this a shot. You might end up liking more than you though.

Verdict: B

by Nicolas Perez

PS: Stay tuned next week for the review of GH: On Tour's big brother, Guitar Hero Aerosmith.

Guitar Hero: Aerosmith Awesomeness

So, I am a huge music game fan. I can play everything on Rock Band, and Guitar Hero on expert. But I just got very excited about Guitar Hero: Aerosmith. Why, you ask? Because freaking Run DMC songs are on the setlist! Both King of Rock (with awesome new solos) and Walk This Way are in. Not only that but DMC himself comes out to rap for both songs.

The setlist so far is looking good, and it seems like it will be a bigger game that the other Guitar Hero spin off (Rocks The 80's) Either way I am pretty excited about it and can't wait for it to come out in June.

My Problems With Guitar Hero 3

Guitar Hero 3 came out in October and brought in tons of sales, but for some reason it just doesn't capture the feel of the Harmonix developed titles. What went wrong with the game? I have a couple of personal things that I feel that went wrong with the game.

First, the difficulty curve is way outta wack. GH 1 and GH 2 did a good job of making sure that the game started  off easy and gradually ramped up difficulty just the right amount for each set while teaching you the skills needed in the higher level songs. The problem in GH 3 is that someone who has played and beaten the first two games on expert can blow through the first six sets of songs with almost always 5 stars. Then all of a sudden, the game hits you in the last two sets with a gigantic difficulty boost. For players on lower difficulties this becomes a problem because you are still trying to learn the concepts and you think you have them down, then the last two sets come in and destroy you.

Second, the people at Neversoft aren't really musicians. This is noticeable in the fact that both the song selection and audio levels are off. Now song selection is probably a more subjective problem but I feel that Rock Band has a better selection of songs because there is a larger variety of genres. Neversoft just chose to put in as much metal and hard rock as they could get, while Harmonix chose some country and pop songs to complement their rock songs. Audio balancing is another problem present in GH 3 but not Rock Band. In almost ever song in Guitar Hero there is an issue with one part of the song being too loud or quiet. A good example of this is "The Metal" where in some spots vocals are inaudible while in others they drown out the guitar part. Rock Band has it down perfect, almost out of necessity because of the fact that 4 different people need to hear their instruments.

Finally, and what I think is the biggest problem with the game is, the note charts are not fun at all. The charts feel like someone just put notes anywhere there was a beat in the song. Some notes seem like they were just added for challenge. GH 3 has many charts where, when they are compared to the Rock Band equivalent, have many inconsistencies from the song. The charts are just not fun to play in some cases (for example "Before I Forget" and Mosh 1 of "Raining Blood")

So I figure, why play GH 3 when Rock Band (which feels like the true sequel to GH 2) is out and it is better in most cases and offers a more compelling multi and single player career? In all honesty, I don't think there is any reason not to be playing the superior Rock Band when Guitar Hero 3 is just a pale imitator of its former self.