When you think of Guitar Hero you automatically think about having that plastic guitar controller in your hand, rocking out to some awesome songs with notes disguised as one of 5 colors -Green, Red, Yellow, Blue or Orange and battling with your friends via online. You could never imagine that a company could ever be able to pull off the same effect on a hand held console...well it seems that Activision has. But did they succeed? After all what is Guitar Hero without the Guitar?
Read on to find out.
Despite what most of you are thinking, Guitar Hero On Tour is anything but lame. This port brings all the fun and entertainment you got from the original console series only in a hand held form and the four button controller is impressive. The controller is very sleek and clean with four buttons --Green, Red, Yellow and Blue-- used to hit your corresponding notes that scroll down the screen in the same "highway" form your used to on the big television screen. Even though this is a portable version of a ever so popular game you still get the chance to unlock stuff for your Guitar and characters such as new clothes. To play On Tour with the four button controller--which you place in the GBA Slot on the DS-- you must hold the DS like a book, I would suggest laying the top screen flat, and make sure you have strapped the controller to your hand nice and snug before you start playing.
One of the cool things I like about this is that when you play the notes the guitar on the touch screen shows what string it is played on. Another cool feature on this is whatever guitar you choose will be the one that appears on the touch screen, including any cool finishes you decide to put on them. One of the things I didn't like about the new controller is that it isn't made for extended play, I played through the complete set list on easy and had no problem but by the time I got to the middle of it on medium my fingers were starting to cramp up. Strumming was really irritating, at first it was easy up until you got to hard and expert to where the notes were cramped together and that is where it became ridiculous to use. Downside to the four button controller is trying to find a comfortable position to be able to play the game, I would normally just rest it in my lap that way the screen wouldn't move that much due to me trying to strum and hit the buttons. Star power was something that started to irritate me: you could either yell "Rock Out" into the DS microphone, press one of the buttons (x,y,a,b) or just blow into the mic. Now why would that irritate me? Simply put: when you are playing outside and there is even the slightest bit of wind the minute you get star power it automatically activates (thank you mother nature).
You will notice some familiar faces have made their appearance on this port including the return of Pandora and two new comers: Memphis Rose and Gunner Jaxon. You play a total of 5 venues and 25 songs which are:
Do What You Want by OK Go
All The Small Things by blink-182
Spiderwebs by No Doubt
Are You Gonna Be My Girl by Jet
We're Not Gonna Take It by Twisted Sister
All Star by Smash Mouth
Breed by Nirvana
Jessie's Girl by Rick Springfield
Hit Me With Your Best Shot by Pat Benatar
This Love by Maroon 5
Heaven by Los Lonely Boys
Helicopter by Bloc Party
China Grove by The Doobie Brothers
Rock And Roll All Nite by Kiss (covered by Line 6)
What I Want by Daughtry
Jet Airliner by Steve Miller Band (covered by Wavegroup)
Black Magic Woman by Santana (covered by Line 6)
Stray Cat Strut by Stray Cats
La Grange by ZZ Top (covered by Line 6)
Youth Gone Wild by Skid Row (covered by Wavegroup)
I Don't Wanna Stop by Ozzy Osbourne
Anna Molly by Incubus
Knock Me Down by Red Hot Chili Peppers
Pride And Joy by Stevie Ray Vaughan
I Know A Little by Lynyrd Skynyrd (covered by Wavegroup)
The venues are: Subway, Rooftop, Parade, Greek Arena and BattleShip.
I personally loved the mixture of the songs though I would have liked to have a little more of a new selection as opposed to a few of the songs I have already played in previous Guitar Heroes. A few of these I could have done without, especially This Love by Maroon 5. Two songs I would have really loved to play on the Guitar for Guitar Hero are Breed by Nirvana and I Don't Wanna Stop by Ozzy Osbourne --why did it take them this long to include music from Nirvana and Ozzy much less put it on the DS instead of Legends of Rock?! The audio is quite impressive for being on the DS but I would suggest to use headphones if you want to get the full effect of the music.
Unfortunately I can't tell you much about the battle mode because no one I knew had this game so as an example here is this video (very cheesy I might add):
Only major downside: My wrist on my left hand hurts like hell (thank you expert mode) so I would suggest to limit yourself to no more than 30 minutes to MAYBE an hour of game play, otherwise you will have to deal with major cramping in your fingers and your wrist will hurt like hell. Is it worth spending $49.99? Eh..it was fun but I can't see it being worth playing after a few times through, which makes the console version that much more appealing thanks to DLC. Overall I enjoyed the game and some of the songs were definitely fun to play, I will admit I enjoyed rockin' out to Jessie's Girl, so I say this is good for renting since there is really no replay value.
