Guitar Hero: Aerosmith

The title of Guitar Hero: Aerosmith is missing something: the Roman numeral III. Building directly on the codebase of the previous game, GHA doesn’t attempt to hide its lineage, but it does make a few noticeable improvements. Aerosmith’s moves have been freshly motion-captured (lead singer Steven Tyler is practically a cartoon character anyway), while camera angles and stage lighting have both been enhanced. (The monster-jawed lead singer and barrel-necked drummer from the GHIII house band return, but they’ve both been improved, too.) Crucially, the difficulty has been adjusted: whereas GHIII wanted you to bleed, GHA simply expects that you come ready to rock.

You play the first two songs of each of the game’s six stages as an opening act for Aerosmith, playing tracks selected by the band, and then Aerosmith takes the stage for the final three songs in each set. The brief but enjoyable 30-song career mode traces the romanticized story of the band’s rise from high-school talent show to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

No downloadable tracks are planned, but the disc packs 40 songs (plus Joe Perry’s boss-battle track), and 24 of those are Aerosmith tunes — several deep-cut album tracks and nearly all the big hits. Thankfully, none of the band’s fluffy, overproduced pop hits of the ’90s appear here; it’s all the rootsy, bluesy, ballsy stuff that the boys from Boston do better than just about anybody. Tracks like “Love in an Elevator” and “Uncle Salty” make the game consistently satisfying and fun to play because the music is so well-crafted to begin with.

In fact, the band has roughly 140 songs to its credit; so why did Neversoft pick “Train Kept a Rollin’” — the only Aerosmith track that appears in Rock Band, and a cover of a Yardbirds tune besides — for the big finale? It’s a too-familiar-to-be-fun ending to an otherwise worthy extension of the Guitar Hero III experience.