I shelled out the $100 to buy the newest addition to the Guitar Hero library: Guitar Hero: Aerosmith. It's technically an expansion pack for Guitar Hero 3 but no other games are required. It's sold as a standalone Xbox 360 / PS3 game for $60 ($50 for Wii and PS2). It's also available as a bundle pack with a new guitar. The guitar is the same as the previous version but comes with a nifty Aerosmith faceplate (it's unknown yet if the same technical problems exist with the new guitar. They probably do since it's the same model.)
The game itself is short. At 30+ songs, the catalog is smaller than its predecessor (hence called an expansion) unfortunately, the price is not correspondingly reduced. However, it is undoubtedly fun.
The plot behind this edition is to traverse through the career of Aerosmith. Beginning in 1971 Nipmuc High School through the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame Induction you will play the band's biggest hits. Each level begins as your chosen character from the available rockers carried over from each of the previous games (in addition to Tom Hamilton, Brad Whitford and Joe Perry from Aerosmith as well as a mystery secret character) where you play 2 non-Aerosmith songs.
Aerosmith chose all the non-Boys from Boston groups for inclusion in the game, based on bands that have either "inspired, played with, or are admired by Aerosmith". To avoid spoilers, rather than list the set list, I'll post a link here. Some of these songs are cover versions and some are original artists.
The band plays the rest of each round as you control Joe Perry performing 3 songs from the band (all original master recordings). It is rather annoying that you must use Joe Perry and cannot choose your own character. Fans of the series will understand when I say that the right fret board on screen makes all the difference and sadly, Perry's fret board looks cool but was not designed by a gamer. It's easy to lose yellow notes in the middle and the right side orange notes (on expert mode) which can cause misses in your game (important for those going for perfect or at least high scores)
All total, there are 41 songs including the 12 non-Aerosmith, 25 by the band, 3 from Joe Perry's solo albums and a special song created for this game used when you battle against Joe Perry for guitar superiority.
The game play is great and it seems to be a tad easier than the behemoth that was Guitar Hero 3. The achievements for the 360 version are much more attainable for the average player (list here). It can be played by those with no previous experience in the genre and enjoyed by the rest of us couch cushion Guitar Gods.
For diehard GH or Aerosmith fans it's a must have. For the average guitar hero enthusiast, it's a solid renter as you'll probably easily beat everything in it within 5 days but it will be a nice holdover until Guitar Hero World Tour comes out in the fall.
Well, at least it's better than Aerosmith's last foray into gaming...
