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Aerosmith are game

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After months of build-up, Guitar Hero: Aerosmith got an official launch in New York yesterday (June 27) as the band members attended a press conference at New York's Hard Rock Cafe. Contest-winning fans who got into the event were allowed an opportunity to test-run the game, which hits stores tomorrow.

The premise of Guitar Hero: Aerosmith is for players to progress from club gigs to stadium shows through the band's four-decade career. Among the Aerosmith tracks used in the game are Sweet Emotion, Walk This Way and Dream On. Guitar Hero: Aerosmith will be released for Wii, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 2 and 3.

During the game's creation, band members spent two weeks performing in a motion capture studio in order for their video game figures to move exactly as the group performs on stage. Singer Steven Tyler said the process was harder than he thought it would be. Game creators "wrapped me in a rubber suit, and I spent seven hours a day for two weeks getting in there with my hands and making this thing be all that Aerosmith is," he explained.

Guitarist Joe Perry said the Guitar Hero series underscores the seismic shifts in the music business. "Everybody's wondering how they're gonna [sell] their music [and] how the musicians are gonna get paid for it," he said. "I think this is one of the avenues that is gonna be an outlet and it's actually as important as albums used to be."

At the press conference, Steven Tyler also addressed his recent stint in rehab, which the singer said was brought on from a dependency to pain and sleep medications after undergoing foot surgery, and not from heavy drug or alcohol use, which had been rumored.

"To have your feet done, to have your leg done, you have to be on narcotics," Tyler said. "You have to be on sleep aids at night. I don't know about Joe (Perry) but I was off and running and I didn't like the me that was me. I just put the brakes on and checked into detox and just pulled the plug on all of it."