With the Career mode charting the rise of the band from their first gig at Nipmuc High School, each set is broken up with interview montages with the band themselves, who reminisce about the events surrounding the next set of tunes and generally add credibility and the odd amusing factoid to the package. These are far less cringe-inducing than we feared when we were first told about their inclusion (remember Revolution X anyone?) and it’s generally quite interesting to hear the ‘story’ of each venue straight from the band in question, especially if you’re a bit of a fan anyway.

But even if you’re not huge on the ’Smith, Neversoft has been careful to ensure that the extra songs on offer should keep everyone happy. The Cult’s She Sells Sanctuary is among the best of these and quite why it hasn’t appeared in any other music games to date is beyond us. Elsewhere, you’ve got the likes of Cheap Trick, Joan Jett, the Kinks, the Black Crowes and The Clash to keep you entertained and that’s just from what we’ve been privy to so far. A special mention must also surely go to Mott The Hoople’s All The Young Dudes, a wonderful tune to start out with, get the fingers warmed up and just generally chill before the rocking starts.

Perhaps the most interesting inclusion, though, is that of Run DMC’s King Of Rock, which is not only way more fiddly than you might remember it being but also sees a guest star take to the stage in the form of DMC himself. As soon as he pops up early in set four, you already know what the encore is going to be. And sure enough, once your four songs are done, the cheering crowd gets treated to your rendition of Walk This Way, which is an absolute joy to play. Make it through this (which isn’t a particularly taxing task for anyone with a modicum of GH experience) and DMC is even added to the character roster, allowing you to set him up with the axe of your choice and swap rhymes for riffs. It’s not so easy to simply plump for Lars with a hip-hop hero waiting in the wings…

And if you can take your eye off the note chart for a second here and there, you’ll notice that far more has gone into the presentation than simply setting up Axel and Lars in Aerosmith masks and rehashing the same well-trodden visuals. Not only has the whole thing been spruced up (although still clearly using the GHIII engine) but the band themselves look fantastic – motion capture and unique animations really help the featured band stand out from the supporting acts. Tyler bops about the stage, gets up in the camera and generally swings the mic stand around like a loon while Perry runs about the stage and rocks out. They’ve even gone to the effort of getting the two to come together on one mic for big harmonies and showing Joe using his talkbox (you know, the thing Richie Sambora uses for the Livin’ On A Prayer intro?) for the opening to Sweet Emotion. Now that’s attention to detail.

As for the track listing itself, we’ve been over the first five sets several times and as well as classics like Love In An Elevator, Sweet Emotion, Dream On and Walk This Way, there’s a lot of early stuff in there for die-hard fans to go nuts over. With such a diverse history, there’s a surprising degree of variety in the songs chosen – if you’re expecting a disc full of good old-fashioned blues rock then you can think again. We haven’t encountered some of the other greats yet, although it could be that these will be saved for the devilish later sets or even bonus content. Tracks like Janie’s Got A Gun, Dude (Looks Like A Lady), Eat The Rich and so forth may not be there yet but we’re guessing that most of Aerosmith’s most famous numbers will make the final cut. There’s also no downloaded songs menu this time, meaning that this is almost certainly going to be a standalone product while Activision continues to focus its DLC efforts on GHIII. Still, the Store has been replaced with The Vault, where you’ll be able to stock up on new axes and tunes with your rock rewards, so it’s not like you won’t have a good amount of songs to choose from anyway.

Without the likes of Slayer, Iron Maiden and any other purveyors of speed-chuggery that you might care to mention, it quickly becomes apparent that Aerosmith will be a far easier game than III, possibly even than II. This is due in part to the fact that Aerosmith aren’t exactly renowned for going as bat-shit crazy as other bands that have featured in Hero lately but also seemingly as a way to open up the game to fans of the band and not just the series – timing seems to be more relaxed, although that could just be due to us coming off the back of Rock Band’s comparative harshness. The last few sets will undoubtedly contain a few beastly tunes to tax even the most fleet-fingered of players but as for what they’ll be? For now, your guess is as good as ours.

360 players will also be glad to hear that Neversoft’s sadistic run with Achievements also seems to have come to an end and most players will now be able to get the full thousand with a little elbow grease. Score targets, note streaks and the more unattainable goals have all been toned down considerably – indeed, in a few hours Aerosmith had already spat out more GamerPoints than GHIII has so far for us.

A new Guitar Hero title is always exciting and with Neversoft displaying a great ability to work the Aerosmith ‘brand’, as it were, into the game with more than just songs and likenesses, this is neither fan service nor a cheap meal ticket. It’s very much a game in its own right, a wonderful collection for fans of the band, a generally well-selected set of new tunes for GH addicts and, perhaps best of all, an avenue into the series for those that have been put off or hit by the brick wall difficulty of III. So if you fall into any of those three categories – which, let’s face it, a hell of a lot of people do – you’ve only got a few weeks to wait for a new, unique and more accessible entry into one of the genre-defining series of our time. All they need to do now is confirm Liv Tyler as a playable character and we’re all set. Pretty please?