Day 121: Guitar Hero Aerosmith

It's Guitar Hero! Again. Guitar Hero Aerosmith is the sixth game in the franchise since it was launched in November of 2005. That's six games in 32 months, or one game every 5.3 month. Not impressed yet? Think about this: Mario Kart Wii was the sixth game in that franchise, which began with Super Mario Kart, released in 1992.


I'm not going to insult your intelligence explaining what Guitar Hero is or who Aerosmith is. I shouldn't even have to tell you that Guitar Hero Aerosmith is a sequel dedicated almost entirely to a certain American rock band whose name escapes me at the moment.

Gameplay in Guitar Hero Aerosmith is identical to the previous games in the series. Plastic guitar. Notes on screen. You know the drill. The only slight difference is the way the tiers of songs are broken up. The first two songs are non-Aerosmith songs, played by the "opening act." The last two and the encore are Aerosmith songs, played by Aerosmith, all motion captured and digitally recreated.

All of the Aerosmith songs and half of the non-Aerosmith songs are original master recordings, and the covers are of much better quality than in past games. So much so that the cover artists are actually credited. The soundtrack includes songs by Cheap Trick, The Clash, Joan Jett, Run DMC (DMC is an unlockable character), Ted Nugent and more. The Aerosmith songs focus (thankfully) on the band's time as a 1970's rock band and not as a 1990's power ballad factory.

This is by far the easiest game in the series. Most songs (even the non-Aerosmith tracks) consist of little more than two repeating riffs and a solo. Still, with new characters and locations (following the rise of the band through places like Max's Kansas City and the Super Bowl Halftime Show), it's more of a complete game than last year's Guitar Hero Rocks the 80's. But unless you're a die hard fan of either the franchise or the band, you're better of waiting for Guitar Hero World Tour, due to hit stores in just a few months.