Guitar Hero: Aerosmith Announced

There have been rumors and rumblings, but this morning Activision officially announced Guitar Hero: Aerosmith. Says frontman Steven "Big Mouth Bass" Tyler:

"Any band that can go from 'Don't Want to Miss A Thing' (Aerosmith's #1 smash hit) to the ass-kicking 'Sweet Emotion' to the cheekiness of 'Love in an Elevator,' to the classic ballad 'Dream On' shows why Activision chose us to headline this game based on the diversity of the Aerosmith catalog. Not only is songwriting a bitch, but then it goes and has puppies."

The setup seems to be a quest through the band's life, from infancy to superstardom to has-been. You'll be playing songs from Aerosmith and "celebrated artists that the band has either performed with or has been inspired by in some way." Is it just me, or does it all seem a little too... restricting? Swapping from Guitar Hero 2 to Rock the 80s to play a few songs was obnoxious enough, swapping from Guitar Hero 3 to play a bunch of Aerosmith songs? I just don't see it happening. Why isn't this a downloadable expansion that adds the songs to your GH3 playlist and an "Aerosmith Story Mode" to the main menu? Now THAT would be awesome.

Guitar Hero: Aerosmith will be coming to PS3, XBox 360, Wii, and PS2 this June.
You can get a taste of the action by downloading "Dream On" for Guitar Hero 3 for free on XBox Live and the Playstation Store this weekend.

Review: Guitar Hero 3

We here at Geekanerd have been huge fans of the Guitar Hero franchise since that fateful day I walked into a Best Buy and gave it a whirl at a demo station. After plowing through three GH games (including the 80s Edition), is their still room in our hearts to be impressed by the series? Well, we've played it thoroughly on both the Wii and PS2, so hit the jump for our full review.

The Good:

It's more Guitar Hero. Seriously, I still enjoy playing the first one immensely, so all Red Octane really needed to do to get me to like this game is not mess with the formula and give me new songs to play. And they've done this. There are a few gameplay differences, most of which I like or at least don't mind. Most notable is the fact that the window for hitting a note is significantly wider. My first time playing I was blazing through strings of hammer-ons and pull-offs that I know I'd never get through in the previous games. Some have grumbled that this cheapens the experience, but it makes me feel like a rockstar so I say it's awesome.

A lot of people have made a fuss about how the game is more difficult than the previous iterations, but I honestly didn't notice too much of a leap, other than that the "First Tier" songs aren't necessarily any easier than the second, third, or fourth tier. There was certainly a larger disparity between the difficulties of GH1 and GH2.

The new guitar controller is really great. It feels much more solid than the old ones, and while the ability to swap out the faceplates and take the neck off are features I'll probably never use, I guess it's nice to know I could if I wanted. Having had time with this guitar and the Rock Band guitar, I'd have to say this one feels MUCH better, even if it doesn't look quite as cool.

The Co-Op Career is a very welcome addition, and making some tracks with especially great bass lines exclusive to that mode makes it seem like more than an afterthought.

Finishing off the Good List is the fact that a lot of the tracks in the game are original recordings. No longer do we have to sit through cringe-worthy covers of songs we love. Jamming to authentic masters immediately crowns this game as the King of the Guitar Hero hill.

The Bad

Unfortunately the game is not without its flaws. The most egregious of these is a severe case of devolving character design. The first Guitar Hero introduced a handful of unique and well-designed characters, but this game takes those, dips them in a vat of blandjuice and gives them all a $50 Hot Topic gift certificate to dress themselves. In the dark. Add a robot (who can relate to a ROBOT?! Especially one so distinctly uncool...) and some really really ugly "Legends of Rock" and you get a character selection screen that's not even worth looking at. The non-player characters suffer as well, most notably the drummer, who looks like he's an animatronic transplanted from a 50s era Disney ride. Ugh.

Another problem is the introduction of the Boss Battles. While the actual battle songs written specifically for the game are fun (why can't we play them in Face-Off mode??!?), the Battle mechanic is seriously half-baked. Every power-up interferes with the fun of playing a song, and most are way too powerful. Getting hit with just about anything in the final battle with the devil will just plain kill you. It's no fun, it feels cheap and unbalanced, and I don't like it no matter what you say.

The Eh...

The online play on the Wii is a mixed bag. We rarely had trouble finding someone to play against, but we've only gotten through one full session without our opponent dropping out when they were losing. Not really the game's fault, but still extremely frustrating. The matching system could also stand to be a bit more intuitive. That being said, the community that's growing at GuitarHero.com shows a lot of promise, with leaderboards and tournament scheduling.

I also have mixed feelings about the added Wiimote functionality. As you can see from the pic at the top of the post, the Wii guitar has a slot for the Wiimote to fit snugly. While there it makes a missed note "twang" sound effect, and vibrates to the beat when you have star power. These features, especially the sound bit, are things I really like in theory but distract me a bit in actual gameplay situations. I'm sure I'll eventually get used to it, but my initial impression was not a good one.

The Verdict:

You've Already Won Me Over, Simpsons Game

I've made some slightly disparaging observations about this game in the past, but the time has come where I'll admit I might have to one day eat my shoe. Every piece of gameplay I see gets me a little more interested, from the stuff above to the GTA parody and original 2D animation after the jump. I realize now that they are calling it simply The Simpsons Game without any subtitle to suggest that it is indeed the ultimate game for the franchise. And when the visuals, voices, and jokes are right out of the show, how could it not be? Well, bad gameplay could kill it, but let's think nice thoughts.

Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s Songs Revealed

After a slow but steady stream of "leaked" tracks, we now have the full, official, 100% long-haired song list from the upcoming Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s. Everything seems to be in order, can't wait to give 'em all a spin when the game comes out July 24. I hope the game itself fixes some of the problems I thought GH2 had as compared to GH1 (too steep difficulty ramping, with a boring Medium and a frustrating Hard), but even if not it'll be fun just to have some new jams in the repertoire. Also of interest is the inclusion of fake 80s group Limozeen, continuing GH's relationship with The Brothers Chaps.

Full list after the jump.

• Caught in a Mosh (as made famous by Anthrax)
• Balls to the Wall (as made famous by Accept)
• Electric Eye (by Judas Priest)
• Los Angeles (as made famous by X)
• Police Truck (as made famous by Dead Kennedys)
• We Got the Beat (as made famous by The Go Go's)
• (I Think I'm) Turning Japanese (as made famous by Vapors)
• Seventeen (as made famous by Winger)
• Because, it's Midnite (by Limozeen)

The previously officially confirmed rockers:

• Hold On Loosely (as made famous by .38 Special)
• No One Like You (as made famous by Scorpions)
• Only a Lad (as made famous by Oingo Boingo)
• Ballroom Blitz (as made famous by Krokus)
• The Warrior (by Scandal)
• What I Like About You (as made famous by The Romantics)
• Wrath Child (as made famous by Iron Maiden)
• I Wanna Rock (by Twisted Sister)
• I Ran (by Flock of Seagulls)
• Round and Round (as made famous by Ratt)
• Metal Health (as made famous by Quiet Riot)
• Holy Diver (as made famous by Dio)
• Heat Of The Moment (as made famous by Asia)
• Radar Love (as made famous by White Lion)
• 18 and Life (as made famous by Skid Row)
• Bathroom Wall (as made famous by Faster Pussycat)
• Lonely is the Night (as made famous by Billy Squier)
• Nothing But a Good Time (as made famous by Poison)
• Play With Me (as made famous by Extreme)
• Shaken (as made famous by Eddie Money)
• Synchronicity II (as made famous by The Police)

Via Kotaku.

Manhunt 2 Axed!

Well, not quite. But Take-Two Interactive has "temporarily suspended" the ultraviolent video game (originally slated for a July 10 release) after having a week of serious setbacks. The game was flat out banned in the UK, and the ESRB rated the US release AO, as in Adults Only, as in most retailers won't sell it and Nintendo and Sony won't allow it on their systems. Read Take-Two Interactive's statement at Gamespot, and visit IGN for some gory details about what it's like to use a Wiimote to saw someone in half from the groin up.

UPDATE: See what the ESRB has to say about everything over at Kotaku.