Developer: Neversoft
Publisher: Activision
Release Date: June 29, 2008
Systems: Xbox 360 (reviewed), PS3, PS2, Wii
ESRB Rating: T
Official Web site

0:00 This and Rock the 80s are the only Guitar Hero games I haven't played yet, and my fake-guitar obsession knows no bounds, so I figured I'd give this disc a spin despite not being a huge Aerosmith fan. FYI, I'm using the Rock Band Stratocaster because a) it's better and b) it's the only one I have that works on the Xbox 360.

0:01 After a decent bit of loading, Steven Tyler and Joe Perry introduce the Neversoft logo. Pan to "NIPMUC" where there's a dance tonight. 2-D cut-outs of nerdy high school kids dancing, then Aeroesmith's van crashes through the wall and Tyler spills out and throws up the horns! People in the audience offer up contracts in deference to his extreme rocking. Backstage, Tyler hugs Perry and suddenly they're in "Aero Force One" flying to stadium gigs around the world. Seems suitably over-the-top for an intro. I really like the animation and art style.

0:02 So I'm not going to explain the gameplay much here because, come on, it's Guitar Hero. You know the drill by now.

0:03 The silver lady from the Just Push Play album cover is on the title screen. Seems appropriate. Let's dive into "quick play." Four of the eight initially available songs are by Aerosmith. The Kinks' "All Day and All of the Night" is the only one I really know, and it's a cover version. Phooey.

0:07 The cover version turns out to be surprisingly decent. I get a 25G "Sick as a Dog" achievement for my five star, Hard difficulty performance. I forgot how much better the background performers look in Guitar Hero when compared to the grainy, music-video style in Rock Band.

0:08 Moving on to the career mode so I can hopefully unlock some better songs. I choose the familiar, incredibly buff Axel Steel, as usual, because he looks a lot like me. Really! OK, not really.

0:09 A video interlude about "Getting the Band Together" starts. Joe Perry and Steve Tyler talk about how they met at a gig at Nipmuc high school. That explains the intro. I "accidentally" skip the rest of their interview because I really don't care that much.

0:14 Despite never having heard it before, I get a 235-note streak on the beginning of Cheap Trick's "Dream Police" and end up with a 97 percent five star rating. Maybe I'm ready for Expert difficulty. Of course, I'm sure the later songs on expert will absolutely kill me. I wish I could toggle the difficulty song by song through my career. Oh, well.

0:15 I lose $2,500 of my pay for "Cars, set fire to." Rock!

0:16 There's only one other song to choose from to advance in career mode, but surprisingly it's one I actually do know: Mott the Hoople's "All the Young Dudes." Again, it's a cover. Bleh!

0:21 Another 200+ note streak to start off the song -- can we skip to the harder stuff yet please? The song is so simple I have time to focus on the horribly misshapen potato face of the lead singer. Bleh! After the song, I get a 15G Achievement for unlocking my first Aerosmith song. They're giving them out like candy. "BRING ON AEROSMITH!" cries the crowd.

0:22 "Wanna blame your TV for sucking? Go to calibrate lag in the options menu," says the loading screen. Heh. Anyway, Aerosmith comes on stage. They look oddly realistic compared to the usual cartoony, exaggerated character models. It's off-putting. Anything's better than Mr.-Potato-Face-Singer, though.

0:26 Just finished 2007's "Make It". Wow, that was a bad song. Repetitive and boring. My mind wandered a lot during the playing. Yawn!

0:27 Once again, I'm forced to perform a single song, "Uncle Salty," if I want to move on. Why the obsession with unlocking? Let me play what I want!

0:28 "In the early days, Aerosmith used to play gigs outside Boston University's student union building." So remember, that crappy college band you're going to see this weekend could one day go on to have a crappy videogame tie-in.

0:30 I didn't really realize how much I liked the interface tweaks in Rock Band until now, when I'm forced to go without them. I really hate the way the note colors go away when I activate the Star Power multiplier. The notes don't seem to match the music quite as well as in RB, either.

0:32 "Uncle Salty" has one really hard section, then one loooong, repetitive section that's a little tough to get down. I only rank three stars this time. Nice to see the difficulty ramping up quickly, even though the song list is still kind of meh.

0:33 A van pulls into the club, full of stacks of speakers. "Aerosmith rocks!" someone cries from the crowd. They want an encore. Another Aerosmith song? I know they're in the title and all, but I was expecting a little more variety.

0:36 "Draw the Line" is pretty rocking, but I'm wondering where the Aerosmith songs I know are. I mean, I know a decent number of their hits. Anyway, four stars.

0:37 Another video interlude: "The first taste of success." Perry and Tyler talk about Max's Kansas City, a club in New York with a "stage the size of a postage stamp." A guy in the audience gave them a contract when they sang about wanting sandwiches? I dunno and I don't care.

0:42 Man, Joan Jett knows how to rock! "I Hate Myself for Loving You" is relatively easy but incredibly fun to play! I got five stars, but I'd play it again just to play it again. I also appreciate that Mr. Potato-Face was replaced with a hot, dreadlocked female singer who's very easy to look at during the drum solos.

0:44 Ah ha! There are more Aerosmith songs that I know available for purchase in "The Vault." Let's ROCK!

0:49 Wow -- be careful what you wish for. "Walk this Way" was incredibly tough. I kind of fake my way through a lot of the harder sections with some hammer-ons. Just as I feel I'm finally getting the rhythm, the song ends abruptly. I got three stars, but I'd gladly improve that with practice.

0:55 "Pink" is a bit slower but not much easier than "Walk This Way." It includes a lot of stretching around the frets, and a whole section that seems designed to teach you how to play two different notes without moving your fingers.

0:59 I finish off with a reprise of "All Day and All of the Night." I play rather sloppily, missing notes I was easily getting earlier. How sad is it that my endurance is flagging after an hour of videogame rocking. I'd never make it as a real rock star.

Would I play this game for more than an hour? Probably.

Why? I'm not a fan of the song selection so far, but I'm a bit of a rhythm game junkie and I'm desperate for a fix until Rock Band 2 comes later this month.

This review is based on a retail copy of the game rented from GameFly.

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