Guitar Hero: On Tour Hands-on DS
May 28, 2008 - In less than a month, Activision will release Guitar Hero: On Tour, a Nintendo DS-exclusive spin-off of the Red Octane rhythm franchise. For more than a year, development studio Vicarious Visions has been on the task of bringing the series to the dual-screen handheld, a tricky project considering Guitar Hero has always been about wailing on a full-size guitar to the tune of guitar-heavy rock tunes. Activision let us get a deep hands-on with the near final project, and I have to say, for a version of the game that doesn't have an actual guitar to play, the Nintendo DS version nails the gameplay.
Guitar Hero: On Tour isn't some quick-hacked, "tap the screen to the beat" touch-screen port. No, it's as true a Guitar Hero game as you're going to get on the handheld, complete with its own peripheral attachment.
Each copy of Guitar Hero: On Tour comes packaged with a Guitar Grip. This attachment plugs into the Game Boy Advance cartridge port of the Nintendo DS system, and features fret buttons that are similar to, but smaller than, the same buttons that are on the neck of the latest Guitar Hero guitar that comes packaged with last year's Guitar Hero III.
Incidentally, if you still haven't upgraded your Nintendo DS to the Nintendo DS Lite, the Guitar Grip works with both systems: by default the peripheral works with the DS Lite, but you can replace the cartridge adapter with the included Nintendo DS Original adapter. All it takes is a tiny screwdriver to pop off the adapter and plug in the other, and you're up and running.Unlike the actual Guitar Hero guitar's five fret buttons, the Guitar Grip features one less. There's a good reason for this: once you've got your hand strapped into the unit, there's no way for you to slide your hand up and down like you would on the neck of the guitar. Each fret button on the Guitar Grip corresponds to a finger on your hand. Four fingers, four buttons.
The Guitar Grip is incredibly well constructed and smartly engineered. It has a slot that holds the included stylus pick, and once it's clicked in place it's not going to fall out. It's also constructed with the thought of personal customization: simply pop the cover off the unit and you can replace the plastic sheet with your own handdrawn or printed creation.
And let's not forget: it's also very responsive when it's interfacing with Guitar Hero: On Tour.The Nintendo DS version of Guitar Hero, despite its smaller size, features pretty much the identical Guitar Hero structure. Due to the restricted size of Nintendo DS cartridges, the handheld version's library of songs is only 25 tracks, but compared to other music and rhythm games on the portable, Guitar Hero: On Tour has the beefiest library of songs on the system to date.
Even without the guitar, the gameplay in Guitar Hero: On Tour is a spot-on conversion of what players have been doing in the past three console games. As notes travel down the "note highway", you strum in time to the music while simultaneously holding down the corresponding buttons.
The touch screen is used for the "strumming" part: you slide the stylus pick over the touch screen, much like you would "flick" the flapper on the Guitar Hero guitar. On Guitar Hero: On Tour, the touch screen is very responsive and allows for strumming in any direction: you don't have to stick with left or right…you can strum up, down, or diagonally, and it doesn't even have to be over the strings of the guitar displayed on the touch-screen. The response is so tight that you'll be able to do quick "back-forth" motions in many of the harder songs easier and more fluidly than you would on the physical Guitar Hero guitar. If you need to "whammy" some longer, sustained notes, you simply keep the stylus pick on the screen and "scribble" to make those long notes warble.
Just like in the console versions of Guitar Hero, in Guitar Hero: On Tour, you'll build up your "star power" by successfully playing a string of star notes. To activate Star Power, you either yell or blow towards the system…the microphone will pick that up and activate the mode, increasing the multiplier as you play.
The game's structure mirrors the console version: play through a set of five songs (four and an encore) to move on to the next batch. As you rock out, you'll earn money that can be spent on opening venues, costumes and guitars for personal game customization.
For technical reasons, the version we played only had a portion of the music selection in the cartridge. The third and fourth tiers were available, which included the following songs: "Heaven" by Los Loney Boys, "Helicopter" by Bloc Party, "China Grove" by The Doobie Brothers, "Rock and Roll all Nite (Kiss)" covered by Line 6, "What I Want" by Daughtry, "Jet Airliner (Steve Miller Band)" covered by Wavegroup, "Black Magic Woman (Santana)" covered by Line 6, "Stray Cat Strut" by Stray Cats, "La Grange (ZZ Top)" covered by Line 6, and "Youth Gone Wild (Skid Row)" covered by Wavegroup.The Nintendo DS version also has an extensive two-player experience where you can compete or play co-op with another system through local wireless. In Co-op, you can play the song together with one person playing lead and the other back-up, or you can compete in a song to try to score the most points in basic Guitar Hero gameplay.
There's also Guitar Duel, a mode that builds upon Guitar Hero III's power-ups. In this mode, you're playing against each other in the same song, but instead of building up star power you're earning power-ups to help yourself or hurt the other opponent. You can cause a fan to throw a T-Shirt up on your opponent's screen forcing him to "sign" his autograph before he can move on. You can also cause a guitar string to break, making him use his stylus to restring his guitar before he can continue to play the song. We've seen attacks that cause a flashbulb to go off in our faces, causing a white-out and making it difficult to see the notes. We've had our amps blown, which makes it impossible to hear the song while strumming along to the tune. Other power-ups include flipping the screens to make the notes show up on the touch screen (ultimately making it impossible for them to activate earned power-ups themselves since they're touch-screen activated), speeding up his notes or temporarily upgrading his difficulty level.
Even with the Nintendo DS being pretty much the weakest of all the currently-supported game systems on the market – handheld or console – Vicarious Visions has done a great job making sure the portable version of Guitar Hero ends up looking and sounding like its bigger brother. The music may be compressed to fit on the cartridge, but the audio quality still sounds great through the speakers or optional headphones, and many of the tracks are the full length ones, lasting five minutes or more in some cases. And you may not be watching what's going on behind the note highway, but the DS game features the same 3D venues and animated band members playing along with the music.
Guitar Hero will always be best played with the heft and meat of a full-sized replica of a guitar. Guitar Hero: On Tour clearly isn't trying to replace that experience, instead it's making an attempt at bringing the experience to a platform that couldn't get it otherwise. After extensively playing an early version of the Nintendo DS version for the past few days, I have to say that Activision and Vicarious Visions have pulled off a great reproduction of the true Guitar Hero experience on the handheld.
Guitar Hero: On Tour isn't some quick-hacked, "tap the screen to the beat" touch-screen port. No, it's as true a Guitar Hero game as you're going to get on the handheld, complete with its own peripheral attachment.
Each copy of Guitar Hero: On Tour comes packaged with a Guitar Grip. This attachment plugs into the Game Boy Advance cartridge port of the Nintendo DS system, and features fret buttons that are similar to, but smaller than, the same buttons that are on the neck of the latest Guitar Hero guitar that comes packaged with last year's Guitar Hero III.
Incidentally, if you still haven't upgraded your Nintendo DS to the Nintendo DS Lite, the Guitar Grip works with both systems: by default the peripheral works with the DS Lite, but you can replace the cartridge adapter with the included Nintendo DS Original adapter. All it takes is a tiny screwdriver to pop off the adapter and plug in the other, and you're up and running.Unlike the actual Guitar Hero guitar's five fret buttons, the Guitar Grip features one less. There's a good reason for this: once you've got your hand strapped into the unit, there's no way for you to slide your hand up and down like you would on the neck of the guitar. Each fret button on the Guitar Grip corresponds to a finger on your hand. Four fingers, four buttons.
The Guitar Grip is incredibly well constructed and smartly engineered. It has a slot that holds the included stylus pick, and once it's clicked in place it's not going to fall out. It's also constructed with the thought of personal customization: simply pop the cover off the unit and you can replace the plastic sheet with your own handdrawn or printed creation.
And let's not forget: it's also very responsive when it's interfacing with Guitar Hero: On Tour.The Nintendo DS version of Guitar Hero, despite its smaller size, features pretty much the identical Guitar Hero structure. Due to the restricted size of Nintendo DS cartridges, the handheld version's library of songs is only 25 tracks, but compared to other music and rhythm games on the portable, Guitar Hero: On Tour has the beefiest library of songs on the system to date.
Even without the guitar, the gameplay in Guitar Hero: On Tour is a spot-on conversion of what players have been doing in the past three console games. As notes travel down the "note highway", you strum in time to the music while simultaneously holding down the corresponding buttons.
The touch screen is used for the "strumming" part: you slide the stylus pick over the touch screen, much like you would "flick" the flapper on the Guitar Hero guitar. On Guitar Hero: On Tour, the touch screen is very responsive and allows for strumming in any direction: you don't have to stick with left or right…you can strum up, down, or diagonally, and it doesn't even have to be over the strings of the guitar displayed on the touch-screen. The response is so tight that you'll be able to do quick "back-forth" motions in many of the harder songs easier and more fluidly than you would on the physical Guitar Hero guitar. If you need to "whammy" some longer, sustained notes, you simply keep the stylus pick on the screen and "scribble" to make those long notes warble.
Just like in the console versions of Guitar Hero, in Guitar Hero: On Tour, you'll build up your "star power" by successfully playing a string of star notes. To activate Star Power, you either yell or blow towards the system…the microphone will pick that up and activate the mode, increasing the multiplier as you play.
The game's structure mirrors the console version: play through a set of five songs (four and an encore) to move on to the next batch. As you rock out, you'll earn money that can be spent on opening venues, costumes and guitars for personal game customization.
For technical reasons, the version we played only had a portion of the music selection in the cartridge. The third and fourth tiers were available, which included the following songs: "Heaven" by Los Loney Boys, "Helicopter" by Bloc Party, "China Grove" by The Doobie Brothers, "Rock and Roll all Nite (Kiss)" covered by Line 6, "What I Want" by Daughtry, "Jet Airliner (Steve Miller Band)" covered by Wavegroup, "Black Magic Woman (Santana)" covered by Line 6, "Stray Cat Strut" by Stray Cats, "La Grange (ZZ Top)" covered by Line 6, and "Youth Gone Wild (Skid Row)" covered by Wavegroup.The Nintendo DS version also has an extensive two-player experience where you can compete or play co-op with another system through local wireless. In Co-op, you can play the song together with one person playing lead and the other back-up, or you can compete in a song to try to score the most points in basic Guitar Hero gameplay.
There's also Guitar Duel, a mode that builds upon Guitar Hero III's power-ups. In this mode, you're playing against each other in the same song, but instead of building up star power you're earning power-ups to help yourself or hurt the other opponent. You can cause a fan to throw a T-Shirt up on your opponent's screen forcing him to "sign" his autograph before he can move on. You can also cause a guitar string to break, making him use his stylus to restring his guitar before he can continue to play the song. We've seen attacks that cause a flashbulb to go off in our faces, causing a white-out and making it difficult to see the notes. We've had our amps blown, which makes it impossible to hear the song while strumming along to the tune. Other power-ups include flipping the screens to make the notes show up on the touch screen (ultimately making it impossible for them to activate earned power-ups themselves since they're touch-screen activated), speeding up his notes or temporarily upgrading his difficulty level.
Even with the Nintendo DS being pretty much the weakest of all the currently-supported game systems on the market – handheld or console – Vicarious Visions has done a great job making sure the portable version of Guitar Hero ends up looking and sounding like its bigger brother. The music may be compressed to fit on the cartridge, but the audio quality still sounds great through the speakers or optional headphones, and many of the tracks are the full length ones, lasting five minutes or more in some cases. And you may not be watching what's going on behind the note highway, but the DS game features the same 3D venues and animated band members playing along with the music.
Guitar Hero will always be best played with the heft and meat of a full-sized replica of a guitar. Guitar Hero: On Tour clearly isn't trying to replace that experience, instead it's making an attempt at bringing the experience to a platform that couldn't get it otherwise. After extensively playing an early version of the Nintendo DS version for the past few days, I have to say that Activision and Vicarious Visions have pulled off a great reproduction of the true Guitar Hero experience on the handheld.
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