Guitar Hero: On Tour

"Guitar Hero: Where players who can't repeadedly press the same button are punished"

This is definitely the most interesting and innovative Guitar Hero yet, but shares a similar flaw with it's big brothers on Wii and Playstation: the difficulty it based primarily on how hard it is to play the same not over and over and over back to back.

Graphics 10/10
I have never seen better graphics on a DS game, it is simply amazing, looks just like it was on a console (except smaller, of course) and there is absolutely no lag in the game.

Music 9/10
The music selection for this game in undoubtedly the best for any in the series, featuring songs such as All the small things by Blink-182, Anna Molly by Incubus, and Spider webs by No Doubt. The sole flaw is that some of the songs just do not fit, for example All Star by Smash Mouth, or Stray Cat Strut by the Stray Cats. The music quality is also very high, and I could not hear any distortion even while playing through my stereo.

Game play 8/10
Now, we get into the really interesting part of the game. For the fret buttons (now called "string buttons" in game), there is a "guitar grip" that is inserted into the gameboy slot of your Nintendo DS (which also fits into an original Nintendo DS). Once you start playing a song, the DS is held sideways, like in Brain Age, and your left hand (right in lefty-flip) is put through the strap of the guitar grip. The familiar round notes come down on the top screen, which is on the left, and the fret/string buttons are held down, then you swipe your stylus (included is a "guitar pick stylus") on the touch screen to strum, and then again on long notes to whammy.

Difficulty and Replayability 10/10
Having only four fret buttons, as opposed to the traditional five does take away from the difficulty, but is that a bad thing? No. Not to the average novice player. The songs on hard are still hard, but are easy enough that even I can beat a couple of them (I can barely play medium on Guitar Hero II for PS2, btw). Since there are four difficulty levels for each of 25 songs (easy, medium, hard, and expert as per usual) there is always a new song to play (unless you are a Guitar Hero prodigy), but then there is also multiplayer, and a Guitar Dual mode for hours more of playtime. The only issue with difficulty is that it is based, like all other games in the franchise, almost solely on how hard it is to play the same note continually over an extended period of time.

Unlockables 5/10
This is where the game really lacks, you can go to the store to see exactly what you can unlock, and then how to unlock it. Want to unlock Les Paul Double Cutaway? Go to the store to see that you need to complete every song on hard mode to buy that. The only hidden unlockable is the bonus song, which was very well hidden, nobody talked of it, and you cannot even tell that there is an unlockable song (all the trailers say 25 songs) unless you watch the credits and notice there are actually 26 songs credited. But then it is unlocked after you beat Guitar Dual on any difficulty, not much of a feet needed for the most important unlockable.

In Conclusion....
This game is definitely worth buying, and I would suggest it over any other Guitar Hero game. It is lacking in certain areas, but it is in the same way that every other Guitar Hero game lacks. The only feature I wish this game had would be downloadable content. But, no chance that's happening on a DS

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 06/25/08

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