I’m not a video game fan by nature but when a new edition of “Guitar Hero” hits the stands I spend at least 24 hours straight playing it. Literally my thumbs are flattened from many a 3am jam session. The latest foray into the world of guitar gods is “Guitar Hero Aerosmith” and with this comes its jump from the Playstation 2 to the magical world of the Wii. Is this a good transition, yes for some reasons but overall I consider this a big disappointment.
“Guitar Hero Aerosmith” allow you to play not only as the basic characters from the various other incarnations of the game, but as the legendary members of the band Aerosmith. The game includes 41 songs made up of various Aerosmith hits past and present including “Sweet Emotion” and “Dream On.” As you move on you can unlock various costumes, characters and guitars including the members themselves.
I have to preface this by saying I do not own a special “Guitar Hero” guitar for the Wii system. I have one for my Playstation and never use it since it hurts my arm…I’m strictly a controller girl which works fine for me. It’s possible my enjoyment of this game was lessened by my lack of a guitar because this game is way too hard to play with a Wii remote. It’s hard to figure out which of the few buttons on the remote signal various guitar chords and certain ones are way too out of reach to play with one hand. I was forced to use two hands to find the various chords and was constantly hitting other keys by accident, once the game starts to speed up good luck changing because it’s way too difficult. If you don’t have a guitar I highly recommend picking one up, it has to be easier than playing with the remote.
The graphics are vastly improved then from the Playstation incarnation. The colors are sharper and Steven Tyler moves more fluidly than the lead singer in the past versions. Sadly I don’t know why they didn’t come out with a version for Playstation, aside from the slightly better graphics there isn’t anything different. The graphics may be better but are still a downgrade from other games I’ve played. My Wii also experienced moments where the game would stick for a couple seconds; it would slow down and mess up hitting the notes properly. I’m not sure if this was just a load issue or for my Wii but it was a bit annoying. If you have an Internet connection with your console you can download songs, which I’m sure is why they put it out on the console, but sadly my Wii doesn’t have a connection so this feature wasn’t utilized.
The story is exactly the same from the past versions but the songs are what make this game so amazing. There are great songs from Aerosmith like “Sweet Emotion,” “Ragdoll” and “Love in an Elevator” all rerecorded by the band themselves. Other than that there are the standard covers of songs from The Kinks and Joan Jett that were fun. As always I would have enjoyed more than 41 songs but I guess that’s the joys of the internet feature. I also wished the encores were saved for the harder levels like in past “Guitar Hero” games.
Due to the lack of a Wii guitar this game just lacked everything that makes “Guitar Hero” fun. It was difficult to use and the sticking really prevented me from enjoying it like past versions. I think I’ll be sticking to my Playstation games for awhile. I give “Guitar Hero Aerosmith” a 2/5, if you can rent it instead of plunking down forty-five dollars to buy it, especially if you don’t own the guitar.
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