The Top 10 Most Challenging Achievements: Xbox 360

02. Guitar Hero: Aerosmith: Score Hero (30G) Score “325,000” or more on the song Train Kept a Rollin'

If you were thinking that you were the only person having problems and being challenged by this one, well, I am about as happy as I can be to tell you that you are not alone. In fact this Achievement is very nearly universally challenging!

For the record this Achievement can only be unlocked in Solo-Play - you cannot do it in multi-player mode. It also happens to feature one of the hardest songs in the game, so getting your 325K score in this is not simply a satisfying action that unlocks a difficult and challenging Achievement, it also happens to be a milestone you can be justifiably proud of!

Every gamer in the world except that little weasel your sister is dating has trouble with this - in fact very very few of them have ever unlocked it.

The weasel your sister is dating can hit this every single time only because he is a freak of nature who spends 8-hours a day rocking out to Guitar Hero in his parents basement because he has no job other than snogging your sister...

If you seriously mean to unlock this one though, we can help. First thing you need to understand is that this one CAN NOT BE UNLOCKED on any difficulty below Expert.

If you don't believe us on that, check the global leaderboards. They don't lie.

When you check, you will notice that the highest score displayed for Hard Difficulty was precisely 290,000 -- which is 35,000 short of the score required to unlock this.

The reason for that is that Hard difficulty and below lack sufficient notes for you to obtain the desired score. For Expert difficulty there are actually 1400 notes - which is more than you need to obtain this score, bonus factors not included!

One of the most common reactions when encountering this sort of challenge is to look for ways around it... In the case of Train - and this Achievement though - there are no shortcuts, no hacks, no cheats, and no way around it but for to complete it properly, on Expert difficulty.

It has been our experience that with songs as complicated as Train when you examine the actual playing it always turns out that it is not the song in its entirety that is the issue, but specific sections of the gone that the player has issues with.

So one of the secrets to success in tackling this is to isolate and identify the specific areas that present the greatest difficulty and challenge for YOU, and then target those sections so that you can master them, and thus in doing so, master the song!

Typically the area that most players have the greatest challenge with is the section that runs from “Train's a Comin'” through “Caboose” -- which naturally enough also happens to be where most of the points are acquired for this tune.

That section has lots of complicated chords and changes, requires dedicated effort and finger work, and features the solos that tend to go pear-shaped the fastest. That is actually a bad thing because all by their lonesome they are really not worth much in terms of points unless you get Star Power going for them - but to do THAT you have to have mastered the approaches and solos...

The first 100K or so will arrive during the easier first-half of the song - which means that the remaining 225K has to come from the second half - and you may be thinking “Whoa! All that from the second half?!”

Fortunately there are sufficient notes in the second half of Train so that you can easily obtain that score and more - not that you need more - we are just saying it is easily within your grasp because ironically the combination of chords in the second half is actually easier - assuming you have good hand-eye coordination and fast fingers - than the chords and sets for the first half.

So our best advice to you? Pick the sections you have the most trouble with, load them up in Practive Mode, and play them over and over until you have mastered them each at different speeds so that you know - you KNOW - you have truly mastered them.

Then take that confidence and do the whole song, get you your 325K and rejoice in an entertaining and challenging accomplishment that very few Guitar Heroes can claim!