Guitar Hero: Aerosmith (Activision)

Three years ago, when Harmonix first put those small plastic guitars in gamers' sweaty hands, the novelty of the controller coupled with the unique gameplay was enough to hold people's attention.

However, as more sequels were cranked out, the game's once novel gameplay is no longer capable of completely carrying the title, and more and more of the game's quality is decided by the caliber of its track list. So what does that say about Guitar Hero: Aerosmith? Well, unless you're a diehard Aerosmith fan, much of this game's appeal may be lost on you.

For the fervent Guitar Hero fan, you'll find an incredibly well-synched guitar simulation featuring a large number of master recordings, and decent graphics toting a motion captured Steven Tyler (which may in fact be seen as a drawback to some). Like the previous Guitar Heroes, the rhythm game mechanic feels as fun and precise as ever, providing most people with the closest re-creation of playing rock n' roll music possible.

However, if you happen to be one of the many individuals who find Steven Tyler's maw frightening, or you aren't up to date on Aerosmith's body of work from the '70s, this will undoubtedly be your least favourite iteration of Guitar Hero. The large majority of the Aerosmith songs included in this title aren't as recognisable as previous Guitar Hero track lists, whose golden rock oldies were performed by a litany of well-known groups, ultimately making those games more diverse and more fun to play. In fact, the total track list in general is much shorter than in the previous titles (31 songs in the main set list and 11 bonus songs) and, for the experienced plastic-axe-man, the game will fly by pretty quickly. The game's toned-down difficulty only adds to the feeling that this edition is not as deep as previous Guitar Hero efforts.

In the end, what you're left with is a familiar game that has less content, less unanimous appeal, easier difficulty, and probably the least amount of innovation offered from a Guitar Hero title yet. Meaning, only the most ardent Guitar Hero or Aerosmith fans should strap on their five-button axes for this rock sim.