This isn’t to say that the game isn’t fun to play. If you’re a fan of the franchise, whether a fan of Aerosmith or not, I defy you not to get massively into jacking out, “Sweet Emotion,” or, “Walk This Way.” It’s entertaining as hell. And Neversoft continues to produce a workmanlike effort with this franchise since taking over with Guitar Hero 3. They may not be nearly as good at this genre as rival developer Harmonix is, but for most gamers, what they produce is eminently playable and can be loads of fun.

That said, in terms of gameplay, don’t look for a ton of improvements to the formula. If you liked what Neversoft produced in the past then you’ll be right at home in this game. It’s the same general look, and when playing non-Aerosmith tracks you still choose from the same set of virtual rockers. The interface is identical to Guitar Hero 3, though it does appear they’ve brightened up the color palette some. It’s very nice to see the colored notes in the game pop off the screen they way they used to in the first two games.

Likewise, the note charting in Guitar Hero 3, which was –at times- awful on the higher difficulties, seems to have improved here. When you play on Hard or Expert there are still songs where the note charting doesn’t seem as authentic as it should be, but the number of those moments -where what’s on the screen doesn’t seem to match what you’re hearing- doesn’t come around as often.

Then there are the infamous boss battles, where you go head-to-head against another guitarist, using insane and contrived attacks to make your opponent fail out of the song before it ends. A lot of fans didn’t take to this feature, and even though it’s reduced to just one battle in the Tour Mode in this version, this time against Aerosmith lead guitarist Joe Perry. The fact that there’s only of these battles would seem to indicate that Neversoft is aware just how much people don’t like this feature. But that begs the question, why include them in the main tour mode at all?

Ultimately, if you like Guitar Hero and you like Aerosmith and don't mind paying $60 for about 41 tracks, then hey, this is your game. Run don't walk and all that. That said, Activision is publishing an Aerosmith-focused game with a mere 31 tour tracks, a significant fraction of which have nothing to do with Aerosmith, and they’re charging people full price for the privilege. They would’ve been better off following the Rock Band formula and releasing the songs as packs of downloadable content instead. At least then, fans of this franchise who want to play the non-Aerosmith tracks wouldn’t have to shell out nearly as much to do so.

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