Error-smith

On Sunday this week, the newest installment of the Guitar Hero series was released, Guitar Hero Aerosmith. This is really more like "Guitar Hero III, Part 2" in that it uses the same graphics engine and presentation... it's just new songs (and mostly Aerosmith songs, as you might have guessed).

I picked up the game for three reasons. First, I do mostly like Aerosmith, so I figured a game made about 70% of their music would be okay.

Secondly, I wanted to actually pick up one of the Guitar Hero games for PS3 so I could have a controller that worked on that system. In a giant bastardly move, the folks at Activision made it so that the Rock Band controllers don't cross over into their game (nor their controllers into Rock Band). Also, since there's no PS2-style controller jack on the PS3, none of the previous Guitar Hero games can be played on it either -- not without buying a USB adapter that from what I've heard doesn't even make the old guitar controller fully compatible. (The whammy bar still won't work, I'm read.)

Well, here's the first strike against the game, because even though I now have an official guitar controller from Red Octane/Activision that's PS3 compatible, not even it will allow me to play the earlier Guitar Hero games on my system. This seems like an incredibly straightforward thing to do. I can only reason it was deliberately manufactured not to allow playing the earlier (pre-Activision) games in the series. Another schmuckly move on the company's part.

My third motive in buying the game was to see if Activision (or specifically, this game's developers, Neversoft) had learned anything from it's many, many mistakes with Guitar Hero III. Now, as I mentioned earlier, this wasn't really a full-fledged new game in the series, so one can't reasonably expect too many things to have been fixed here. But one of the biggest beefs I had with the game (along with virtually every reviewer on the planet) was its sickeningly hard level of difficulty.

Basically, I was (and am) using Guitar Hero Aerosmith as an audition to see if I'm going to actually want to buy Guitar Hero World Tour in a few months. See, the next GH game is adding drums and vocals, just like Rock Band. And in yet another dickish move, the game is going to use its own new controllers that aren't Rock Band compatible. So we're talking about the prospect of buying another $150-$200 worth of fake plastic instruments and finding somewhere in the house to store them. Is it likely the game will be worth that?

Based on GH Aerosmith, I have to say, "Signs Point to No." It didn't take much playing of the game to see that the people at Neversoft clearly don't "get it." Yes, the difficulty of this game is dialed down from GH3. But there's more to "getting it right" than that. The "note charts" (as fans of these games have dubbed the patterns you have to play) don't really make you feel like you're actually playing the song.

They often have crazy-long "Star Power" phrases required to earn your big crowd pleasing moments. The phrases are also often non-sensical. Rock Band (and Guitar Hero, in the old days under Harmonix) almost always puts them at logical "big moments" in the song, and they usually last an understandable number of beats or measures in the music. In GH Aerosmith, they tend to last an almost random number of notes... as long as the designers damn well please.

The note charts often don't match the music. For example, in the Expert rendering of Rag Doll, a musical phrase that steps straight up the scale from low to high ("...get it while it's easy...") plays alternating notes on the guitar (1-3-2-5-4-5). It's not musically logical' it can be that way only to make the song more difficult to play.

So, as I said, the folks at Neversoft just don't "get it." These games are supposed to be about giving the player the illusion that they're a rock star in their own band. But playing the songs feels more like playing Soul Calibur. (Dodge... jump... now do your three-button combo to launch your attack!) It's impossible to get lost in the fantasy for even a second. You're playing a game.

As for the other trappings of Guitar Hero Aerosmith? Well, the soundtrack's okay. It turns out either I don't like Aerosmith as much as I thought, or that playing that much of any one band wears thin after a while. (I think it's a measure of both.)

The motion capture of the Aerosmith members is incredibly authentic, at least. The game's Steven Tyler, in particular, moves just like the real thing. But unfortunately, he doesn't quite look like the real thing. There's something fake and plastic-looking about all the characters. (Though none is as butt ugly as the dog-faced lead singer from Guitar Hero III.)

And perhaps most humorous of all, the big "final song" in the game is "Train Kept a Rollin'," which is the one and only Aerosmith song already in Rock Band. That's pretty much cementing that anything Guitar Hero does these days, Rock Band does better. Much, much better.

I'd rate Guitar Hero Aerosmith a D+. And if you don't like the band, then lower than that. Basically, don't get this game. And, based on this game, right now I'm thinking don't buy Guitar Hero World Tour either, when it comes out.