With the success of the Guitar Hero series, it was pretty much inevitable that we would see a handheld adaption of the series sometime in the future. When Activision announced that it would be bringing Guitar Hero to the Nintendo DS, that’s when things started to get interesting. Reading further into the game you would realize that it wasn’t developed by Neversoft or series creators Harmonix; instead, Vicarious Visions (the team most recognized by DS owners for their iterations of the Tony Hawk series) got the call for this project. While it’s not the full rock-out experience you get from holding a real guitar on its console counterpart, Guitar Hero: On Tour is about as close as you can get, despite some troubles along the way.

Rock Out to the Hospital?

Imagine riding the bus downtown or the subway on your way to work, and you suddenly hear out of nowhere, “Rock Out!” You might be confused and puzzled, however, when you look upon the person sitting across from you, you might think to yourself, “Why is that person rocking out to a video game?” This is Guitar Hero: On Tour, and appropriately named at that. You can take your virtual band on the road for the first time in the series history. To bring it to the Nintendo DS was probably the smartest marketing decision any company ever could make. However, that’s where the smart decisions stop.

The Guitar Hero: On Tour package comes with both the game and the special fret attachment which slides into the Game Boy Advance slot on your DS. You’ll also get a random assortment of Guitar Hero-related stickers and a specially made stylus in the form of a guitar pick to top it all off. Gameplay is all around pretty much the same as the previous titles in the series. You just simply strum the guitar with your stylus pick on the right and press the colored buttons to match the ones appearing on screen during the song. There is a bit of a questionable track listing here, as the game only comes with 25 songs. Some artists like Smash Mouth and Maroon 5 aren’t exactly Guitar Hero material. Only about 5 songs may be familiar to Guitar Hero enthusiasts and the rest are fairly new to series or are recreated just for the game’s sake.

I found it quite difficult to find a suitable and comfortable position to play with during my sessions with On Tour. I have small hands so it makes trying to rest my fingers on the fret buttons tiring to the point where I would have to take a break while playing. Before you begin the game there is an on-screen prompt to let remind you that you should make sure to keep your wrist straight during gameplay and to take breaks in between songs. While the Guitar Grip fits in nicely to the GBA slot, it can get quite cumbersome as it will easily slip out during mid-song. When this happens, the screen will turn black and give you a message saying that you rock too hard and even worse is that after pushing the Grip back in you can’t just continue where you left off. You would have to restart the DS and get yourself back into career mode to continue.

Career Mode is a bit lacking in a lot of areas. There are no boss battles after concerts. You pick your guitarist and guitar in the beginning of the game and you just continually play song after song until you unlock the entire set list. You can play through the standard difficulty modes, Easy, Medium, Hard and Expert. There is a multiplayer side available that makes things a little more interesting. There is no online play unfortunately and the only multiplayer you can see is DS vs. DS in the same room. Guitar battles are here but again only in the multiplayer.

Graphics

For a Guitar Hero game, the graphics are adequate enough, though they could certainly have been better. I can understand the focus of development being on the gameplay side of things more so than the graphics. However, you may not want to think of the Playstation 2 version of a Guitar Hero game but think about a downgrade of that instead. It’s not bad but every time I start a song and I look at the band that is performing, I immediately think of the old-school sprites that you would see in the 2D games in terms of character models. The graphics, however, didn’t bother me as much as the sound did.

Sound

I am really disappointed here when it comes to the sound. You shouldn’t have to plug in earphones to make the experience that much better. When you start a song you should be able to hear it clear and concise, not to the point where all you hear is the lyrics. For some reason, it was during development that the sounded needed to be tuned down without using headphones. You could have the volume on the DS full blast and it would feel like your still on the lowest volume setting. The sound here is also fairly flat and doesn’t have much quality to it. If only the quality of the sound could’ve been tweaked a little more, it would have made the experience that much better. You shouldn’t have to put on headphones to hear the sound better.

Plasma Factor

Guitar Hero: On Tour packs an interesting package, and the Guitar Grip is the PlasmaFactor here, as long as you can find some comfortable way so that you don’t injure your wrist playing this game. While this game is playable for everyone, I might not even let my child play with this as you would have to make sure they take breaks in between songs so as they not hurt their own wrists. The on-screen prompts that let you know of this possibility are always a good thing and should be taken seriously. The Guitar Grip is just not quite functional. It works to a certain extent and is a great idea, but ultimately falls short in the long run.

Conclusion

Would I recommend Guitar Hero: On Tour? If you happen to find this game available for rental with all items included or if you can borrow it from a friend, then definitely give it a try. $49.99 is a bit pricey for 25 songs and no online multiplayer, and even no boss battles. If I were to settle on a price, I think I’d go with $29.99, but maybe that’s even pushing it a bit considering the lack of content. Despite my criticisms, I certainly applaud Vicarious Visions in their effort here. They created a portable experience that can be enjoyed and it certainly gives us the ability to rock out on the road or wherever we might be.