When I got the opportunity to review Guitar Hero Aerosmith, I was thrilled to finally have a chance to see what all of the Guitar Hero hubbub was about. Why was this game, which to the uninitiated player’s eyes is a rip-off of the 80s electronic “follow the blinking light” game Simon, so amazingly popular.

Why, because it’s really, really fun, of course.

Once I sorted out the whole “using a guitar as a controller” thing (“oh, that green thing at the bottom of the screen means to push the GREEN button on the guitar neck”), the game was fairly easy to navigate. Since this is Guitar Hero Aerosmith, the game opened with stylized cartoon featuring Aerosmith as the stereotypical rockers, singing on stage and doing their thing as they (accidentally) sign a contract and go on tour around the world.

Gameplay and Options

Career
The overall goal is to play each set list of songs at milestone venues from Aerosmith’s career, either playing non-Aerosmith songs as part of the warm-up band, or Aerosmith hits as the headliners themselves. As you complete the songs successfully, you too can become a Guitar Hero!

First, you need to choose one of eight warm-up band member avatars to play. You can customize your character by changing their outfit or guitar.  At “the Vault,” you can “buy” them special gear or unlock new songs using cash that can be earned after successfully completing a song.

You also have the option (thankfully) to choose to play at Easy, Medium, Hard, or Expert levels. The biggest differences are the number of notes to play and the number of fret keys in use, for instance, Easy only uses 3 keys, while Medium uses 4. I haven’t made it past Medium. Yet.

As a song plays, the note pattern at the bottom of the screen scrolls across in real-time. You must press the correct fret keys and strum at the right time for the note to count as being played. You can gain point bonuses by collecting “Star Power” (obtained by getting a series of star-shaped notes correct), then releasing it by lifting the guitar controller up vigorously. You also can utilize the ”Whammy Bar” on long notes to add some flair. In order to play a song successfully, you need to hit a certain percentage of notes correctly. When you do, you gain points and earn cash to buy things in the Vault. The song is then unlocked for you to play whenever you want to, and you’re ready to move on to the next song on the set list.

If you don’t hit enough correct notes, you “fail” the song and get booed off the stage.

Quickplay
If you’ve only got time for a song or two and you’re anxious to leap right in and start playing, you can play any song you’ve either unlocked or bought at the Vault. When successful, points are awarded and high scores are maintained, but you earn no cash.

Multiplayer/Online
With a second guitar (or a bass guitar), there are a few things to do with a friend. If you don’t have a second instrument or a handy friend, you can also play these variations online through the Playstation3 Network.

Face-Off and Pro Face-Off are straight competitions where you either alternate portions of a song or have to play the same song at the same time. Best score wins.
In Co-op, you and your friend can rock out on any unlocked song using a guitar or bass.
In Battle mode, you can compete against a friend, but you can also earn attacks that you can use to make your opponent mess up.

The nice thing about these multiplayer games is that each player can choose their own difficulty level during the same game, with point bonuses awarded to those playing the more difficult levels.

Training
Tutorials are where you go to learn the intricacies of “Star Power,” “the Whammy Bar,” or the purpose of the “Rock Meter” on the right side of the screen.
Practice is where you go to nail that solo without worrying about scoring or booing fans. You can play any unlocked song at a normal speed, or slow it down to get that fingering sorted out.

Extras
Some “fun” customizable features such as picking out a character fell a little flat for me. It would have been more fun if you could “create” a new character, changing hair color, face shape, etc, as you can with the Wii console Miis. Since you can only choose from a handful of characters, I never felt any connection to them so I didn’t see much point in spending my hard earned cash on upgrading my character’s outfit or guitar from the Vault. These characters are also only used for a couple of cover songs per venue. The Aerosmith band member avatars take the stage when their own songs are played. I think all my earned cash will go toward unlocking the extra songs found in the Vault.

In between venues, small snippets of interviews with the real band members of Aerosmith were shown, which I really enjoyed. I’ve long appreciated Aerosmith’s music, but was never a big enough fan to seek out interviews or read their bios. It was fun hearing some of the stories of their long career, and it was good to finally get a feel for who they are as people.

The graphics were well done. Aerosmith’s characters really looked like the band members and people moved realistically. But my focus wasn’t really on the characters, though. I stared intently at those scrolling colored dots most of the time.

I was disappointed that, unlike Guitar Hero Legends of Rock, I couldn’t find expansion song pack add-ons available for download at the Playstation 3 Network Store for this version of Guitar Hero. I would have liked to add additional songs to the repertoire and can only hope that they would make some available in the future.

Age Range
This game is rated T for Teen by the ESRB, but I don’t think the average 10-year-old would be traumatized by anything here. You do have to realize that this is a hard rock band, and in that stereotypical rocker vein, there are some minor language infractions, but the language I heard in the game was tamer than what I hear on prime time network TV. Some of the songs are about more...shall we say “mature” themes. Again, this is Aerosmith. If you’re at all familiar with their music, you know what they sing about, but it’s nothing worse than is played on the radio. If you’re offended by this kind of language, don’t get this for your child. If you have a budding younger rocker who is more-than-likely not paying attention to the lyrics anyway and just wants to pretend to play guitar, then that’s your judgment call to make.

As far as the ability to play the game, my 4-year-old couldn’t play it on his own, but had a blast when he wore the guitar and strummed while I hit the frets for him. My 7-year-old could sometimes get through the songs, so I’m calling that the lower age limit. After this age test, I now know the song “The Dream Police” by Cheap Trick really, really, really well.

Final thoughts
I don’t play guitar, and probably will never take the time to learn. That said, I really enjoyed this game. I like the way it forces you to pay attention to the melody that the guitar is playing, helping you to hear nuances in songs that you may have heard for 20 years, but never actually noticed before. When I listen to The Dream Police on the radio, I now appreciate that disjointed guitarey bit near the end because it was so hard to play, and I find my fingers twitching in time until the last chord is strummed.  While nobody will actually learn to play guitar from Guitar Hero, kids and adults alike can take away a newfound sense of music appreciation, and maybe a few of them will go on to learn an instrument and make music of their own one day. Meanwhile, you can find me in my living room, pretending to be a rock star and loving every minute of it.