It's been a few years now since Guitar Hero and its novelty plastic peripheral blazed a trail through the rhythm-game genre and set our world on fire. During that time it has spawned two sequels, a crappy 80s themed standalone disc, and – some might argue superior – competitor in Rock Band. Full blown sequels are great, but what do guitar heroes play once they've mastered Dragonforce on Expert and uploaded 38 different videos of their triumph to YouTube? Activision was worried too, and so they had the genius idea of doing something a bit different...not just your usual themed expansion ala the myriad SingStar expansions, no, but rather a standalone offering focused solely on one band. That band is Aerosmith.

I'll fill the awkward silence by asking the question you're all thinking: why Aerosmith? Why not Metallica, The Who, Black Sabbath or any other of a hundred possible candidates? I can't answer my own question I'm afraid, suffice to say that while Aerosmith may seem like an unusual choice, they've certainly been around for awhile, actively making new music for the better part of four decades and producing hit songs the whole time. That said, we might as well stop dancing around the issue and get this out of the way: if you don't like Aerosmith, you won't like this game. If you do like Aerosmith, you might like this game. If you like Guitar Hero but aren't sure how you feel about Aerosmith, well, this review is aimed at you.

Personally, I'm in the latter category: love Guitar Hero (but suck at it), and while I'm familiar with a few Aerosmith songs, on the whole know very little about them and as such didn't really have a firm opinion on their music one way or another. Chances are that a lot of you will be the same, because while Aerosmith are pretty well-known – particularly some of their songs – their popularity in Australia has never been even remotely close to what the band inspires in its American homeland or even Japan and Europe. This is a bit of a double-edged sword really; on the one hand it means lots of tracks you probably haven't heard of, and on the other it means...lots of tracks you probably haven't heard of!

This becomes a problem when a number of Aerosmith's most popular and successful tracks are absent from the soundtrack: "Angel,” "Dude Looks Like a Lady,” "Janie's Got a Gun,” and even that crappy song from the movie Armageddon, "Don't Wanna Miss a Thing” are all notable no-shows among others. What makes this unforgivable is that Guitar Hero: Aerosmith doesn't exactly boast a robust roster, weighing in at a positively featherweight 41 tracks consisting of 31 main-game tracks and ten bonus songs. 25 of the tracks are Aerosmith, with the remainder consisting of some Joe Perry side-project music, as well as songs from bands that have either toured with or somehow inspired Aerosmith.

To put this in perspective, Guitar Hero 2 had 64 songs and Guitar Hero 3 had 73, not including Downloadable Content, which, crucially, is something Guitar Hero: Aerosmith doesn't support. If the game was priced as an expansion or significantly cheaper the stingy soundtrack might be tolerable, but with a recommended retail price of AU$89.95, it's hard to be happy with less than 50 tracks included, especially with so many of the popular hits absent from the lineup. Still, there's some classic tracks included, like "Dream On,” "Love in an Elevator” and the brilliant "Walk This Way” featuring Run DMC. The non-Aerosmith tunes are great too, with standouts like "Dream Police” from Cheap Trick and "Sex Type Thing” by the Stone Temple Pilots.

So outside of the set-list, has anything else changed? Not really, the Guitar Hero formula is intact and untouched, albeit a little easier than previous games. This is a blessing for some given how tricky some tracks were in Guitar Hero 2 and 3, but it means that rock gods who shredded those games to pieces will find little of challenge here. This is largely due to the consistency of the style and melodies thanks to the game focusing predominantly on one band, but even the non-Aerosmith stuff is pretty light compared to the likes of Guitar Hero 3's soundtrack. The rock-battles that routinely punctuated proceedings in Guitar Hero 3 have been scaled down to just one encounter (against Joe Perry), so if you didn't like that addition to the gameplay you'll no doubt take pleasure in that.

Visually, Guitar Hero: Aerosmith looks pretty much identical as Guitar Hero 3; all the same characters appear, and the sets and guitars all take their cues from the Guitar Hero style. Members of Aerosmith look less cartoony than the other characters, and have been professionally motion-capped to provide authentic on-screen antics, which is a nice touch. All the sets are modelled on locations significant to the band, like their first gig at a high-school, their halftime show at the Super Bowl and their induction into the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame. After completing a set, you'll be treated to a short video of the band members talking about the venue or the concert, which is a nice way of creating a narrative timeline. They're very short snippets though, and it would've been nice to see a little bit more from the band and learn more about their history.

Obviously a game like this lives and dies by the quality of its audio, and thankfully Guitar Hero: Aerosmith doesn't disappoint. All their tracks are original masters, with a few songs like "Dream On” being specially re-recorded just for the game. The non-Aerosmith stuff is probably a 50/50 split of original masters and covers, but they all get the job done and the game sounds great as a result. Joe Perry's side-project stuff isn't great of course, but that's a different type of quality control issue!