"Damn, I'm good."
That was my first thought after playing "Guitar Hero: Aerosmith" at a small event last week held in San Francisco.
I haven't played "Rock Band," my music game of choice, in a few weeks. I should've been rusty, especially using a different controller. Despite this, I was nailing note sections that I would have failed in "Rock Band."
In response to complaints in "Guitar Hero III," Activision and Neversoft appear to have seriously dialed back the difficulty of hammer ons and pull offs.
I really like it. But I'm not sure others will.
There was a time when I played "Guitar Hero" on masochistic settings. Since my life became busier in San Francisco, I don't. But that's why hardcore "Guitar Hero" players loved "Guitar Hero III." That game was engineered for the gamer desiring a harder song, the next nail biter. They wanted their fingers to go numb. But that's not what the casual player wants. It created a notable backlash.
"Rock Band" went the other direction. When I chose to buy "Rock Band" over "Guitar Hero III" last fall -- months before I worked for MTV, conspiracy theorists! -- it was because I wanted the full-band experience. When I learned how tough "Guitar Hero III" was on expert, typically my difficulty of choice because hard is too easy, I was even happier with my "Rock Band" purchase.
If "Aerosmith" and assumedly "Guitar Hero: World Tour" are tweaking their hammer ons and pull offs to compensate, it makes them more desirable (to me).
There's almost no chance I will ever finish "Green Grass And High Tides" in "Rock Band." I will never finish the expert mode in that game. It still bums me out. But that's largely because my fingers can't move fast enough to execute the endless hammer on and pull offs featured in the song. If "Rock Band" was more forgiving on those notes, I might stand a chance to cross the finish line.
Essentially, if "Green Grass and High Tides" was featured note-for-note in "Aerosmith" but with the tweaked gameplay mechanics, I could probably beat it.
Since I didn't spend much time with "Guitar Hero III," I thought I might've just been assuming too much. But 1UP podcast editor Andrew Pfister, who beat "Guitar Hero III" and played "Aerosmith" alongside me, agreed with my observations. He said it felt considerably toned down from the last installment.
While these revelations make me more inclined to check out what "Guitar Hero" has to offer, I wonder if it will turn off hardcore fans who loved how "Guitar Hero III" catered to them. Maybe Neversoft could appease both sides by making gameplay customizable. Is there a technical reason why a gamer couldn't go into the options menu and choose to have the hammer ons and pull offs operate as they did in "Guitar Hero III?"
Then again, "Aerosmith" could be an experiment. If "Guitar Hero III" went too far in one direction, "Aerosmith" may be a trial run in the other. Maybe "World Tour," or three games later for newly appointed "Guitar Hero" developer Neversoft, they will discover a balance that makes everyone happy.
***
Have a hot tip? Is there a topic that Multiplayer should be covering and isn't? Maybe you think both are too easy! Drop me an e-mail.
Comments