Guitar Hero: On Tour

"First attempt at a portable Guitar Hero game, and it shines."

Overview:

As mostly everyone knows, Guitar Hero is a game played on the consoles with a plastic guitar, 5 fret buttons, and a strum bar. And it is addicting. It is really frigging fun. But Activision has made it into a DS game and was very successful.

Gameplay 10/10: Mostly everyone knows how to play Guitar Hero, but if not, it has 5 fret buttons that you strum along to with the colored gems on the screen. Very simple, but very fun premise. Now it's on the DS and it has been executed very well. Some were skeptical on how well the game on the DS would work, but it is perfect. With the fret button add-ons, you can strum with the added guitar pick with the touch screen and press the fret buttons as the gems flow along on the regular screen. Very nice, how much? Oh and the pick DOES NOT, I repeat DOES NOT scratch the screen. There are still hammer ons and pull offs, but they aren't like Guitar Hero 3 where every solo is just HOPO, you do have to strum most of the solos.

Sound 10/10: Sounds perfect, preferable to listen to with headphones, but still sounds great without them. There are 25 tracks included to the game 21 of them master tracks. No problem with the sound at all in this game. There are 5 songs from Guitar Hero lll in this game and they are perfectly transfered to the 4 fret buttons. Since this is a DS game, there are a few songs aimed at kids like All Star by Smash Mouth and Are You Gonna Be My Girl by Jet, BUT don't let that discourage you as there are classic rock tracks such as ZZ Top, Incubus, Ozzy Ozbourne, and Steve Ray Vaughn.

Control 8/10: This is the part that made me a TINY bit disappointed in this game. The idea was perfect, was executed perfectly, but it just feels so awkward sometimes and uncomfortable. But besides that it feels weird sometimes, it's fun when you aren't poking at your touch screen, trying to break it because you can't beat the last song cause the controls feel so weird for fast songs. Otherwise the controls are perfect.

Summary: With perfect gameplay, great sound, and great feeling controls, Activision shoots and scores with this one.

Final Score: 9/10

Pros:

+Great gameplay

+sounds great

+feels good and comfy

Cons:

-Can feel awkward

-Can make you angry and want to smash your screen in

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 06/24/08

Game Release: Guitar Hero: On Tour (US, 06/22/08)