Ben MooreReview: Guitar Hero - On Tour (Nintendo DS)
June 12th 2009 04:56
Category: No Category
The next great rhythm game or a low note for the series?
The guitar Guitar Hero franchise has really taken off over the last couple of years and now with it’s rising success it’s no surprise to see it appearing on every console under the sun. The latest of which is the Nintendo DS.
Obviously one of the most important elements of any music game is the songs. Guitar Hero: On Tour has 26 songs. 25 of these are unlocked as you progress through the story mode and the final song; Freezepop's, ‘I Am Not Your Gameboy’ is unlocked after completing the 'Guitar Battle' mode (more on this later). At present I haven’t unlocked this final song but have played through the 25 others. There are also 5 different songs in the European version of the game, some of which are foreign language tracks judging by their titles as well as one song (Monsoon by Tokio Hotel) that was featured in the European version of Rock Band. Some of the songs seem to be slightly more oriented towards a younger audience for this game, with artists such as Smash Mouth and Blink 182 but it’s not as bad as some reviewers have made it out with plenty of more traditional Guitar Hero artists like Nirvana and Kiss also showing up. Unfortunately out of the 26 songs, eight have already appeared in some form in previous Guitar Hero or Rock Band games and six of the songs in the games are covers. The covers are decent versions of the originals and although I haven’t compared the two side by side, I’m fairly certain the three cover songs that appear in both Guitar Hero III and On Tour are the same versions, so that should give you some idea. One thing that’s lacking is the quality of the recordings. Obviously the DS cartridge can’t hold as much data as the console version’s DVD’s so there is noticeably less songs than the console versions, no bonus or downloadable tracks and the sound quality is noticeably lessened due to the compression used to fit them on the cartridge. This is a shame because even though the DS doesn’t have the best speakers, even with headphones it makes the songs sound a bit like a radio recording. Elite Beat Agents/Ouendan (another rhythm game for the DS) has around the same number of songs and even they seem to be of slightly higher quality when using headphones so hopefully by the time the next game in the series is released they will be able to improve in this area a bit.
Another major component to the success of the Guitar Hero games has been the inclusion of the guitar peripheral and so converting the fun and feel of having a full guitar in your hands was always going to be a challenge when bringing the game to the handheld markets. The developers, Vicarious Visions have done a pretty good job designing a controller adapter that slot’s into the DS’s Gameboy Advance port. It acts as the neck of the guitar and reduces the number of buttons to four instead of five because of practicality issues. Strumming is achieved by moving the stylus (which is in the shape of a pick and comes with the game), across the strings of the guitar that appears on the DS’s touch screen. The note highway appears on the other screen of the DS and the system is held ‘book style’ where the console is rotated 90 degrees instead of the regular DS orientation, so the note highway appears on the left, strumming is on the right and you use your other hand to press the fret buttons. The frets don’t have the ‘clicky’ feel on the console guitar controllers and instead produce almost no sound when pressed. This feels a bit weird at first but definitely makes for playing in public a slightly less attention seeking affair. Overall it’s a great achievement that allows the Guitar Hero experience to be replicated pretty well on a handheld but it’s not without its problems. Personally I was unable to play more than a few songs at a time, sets are broken down into five songs each (four songs and an encore) and after playing a whole set my hands got quite uncomfortable. This is mostly due to having to reach around the back of the console to press the finger buttons, particularly the blue fret which had to be pressed with your little finger is a little difficult at times and can definitely become painful if played for too long. There are even warnings at the start of the game, telling you to hold the system properly and even take breaks because of this. The controller comes with a nice adapter that allows for compatibility between the two consoles and I played the game on both the original DS and DS Lite and had the same problems but it’s probably better suited to the Lite for its smaller size. If there is an upside to this fact, it’s that it may make the game last longer because you will probably want to recover before moving onto the next set list.
Unlocking things in the game is a pretty straight forward experience. The song progression is the same as the solo tour mode of the consoles, in which you play a few songs and then an encore before moving onto the next set list of songs. Costumes, guitars and guitar finishes are all purchasable from the store but many of these have to be unlocked in the game first, and then purchased. This creates a bit of a frustrating situation where you can have several thousand dollars to spend and plenty of items to acquire but you’re unable to do so until you finish the game on a difficulty easier than the one you may have already finished the game on. Five starring a certain number of songs on each difficulty or completing battles are also ways of unlocking things to buy in the shop.
The difficulty of the game is actually quite a bit easier than previous Guitar Hero games. I played through on Expert for my first play through and without knowing many of the songs, I was able to finish every song but two on my first attempt. This was the first time I’ve been able to do that in a Guitar Hero/Rock Band game but apparently Guitar Hero: Aerosmith (which I have not yet played) has a similar level of difficulty. The lower difficulty isn’t necessarily a bad thing though, Guitar Hero III was definitely too hard on some songs and as a lot of people will be playing on a train or bus where it’s not the best conditions to get a good note streak happening, it is mostly appreciated. ‘I Don't Wanna Stop’ by Ozzy Osbourne is the song I found the hardest in the game and the final song in the game, ‘I Know a Little’ also had a fairly difficult intro to play but also featured for the first time in a Guitar Hero game, a section where all four buttons were pressed at once, which was a nice inclusion.
Finally the battle mode which was featured in Guitar Hero III makes a return here. Instead of going up against some professional guitarists during the course of the solo tour, it makes up its own mode. This basically consists of playing every song in the solo game against a computer opponent, who uses attacks similar to those in Guitar Hero III against you. As there isn’t enough room on the DS’s screen to see your opponents note highway, you can’t win by knocking them out and you also can’t lose the same way. Instead a sliding bar at the top of your screen moves towards you or the computer, depending on how you play and what attacks you use. If you get to the end of the song with the bar on your side then you win. There are some new attacks that are suited to the DS’s functionality such as blowing out a fire with the microphone or signing an autograph for a fan but overall the battle mode is still not that much fun. Guitar Hero is more about perfecting note streaks than using cheap attacks to win but it does add effectively twice as much length to the game for anyone wanting to play this mode, so it’s still a worthy inclusion. There is also a multiplayer mode that features both battle and face off modes but I haven’t been able to try this out just yet but I imagine it works much the same way as the console versions.
In terms of presentation the graphics are decent and the characters are represented on stage with whatever outfit and guitar you chose in 3D. The DS doesn’t do 3D that well but you won’t be looking at the characters most of the time anyway so they do a good enough job. The lead singer’s mouth moves but not in time to the vocals but again, you won’t be paying enough attention for it to matter much. One of the issues I had was that star power is activated by the microphone. You can shout something to activate it or blow into the microphone if you don’t want to embarrass yourself in public. However when playing on the train or areas with a lot of background noise, even with the mic sensitivity set to low, starpower would still activate as soon as it was available. This makes storing starpower to use when you’re in trouble almost impossible. It’s not as necessary a tactic to do as it is in previous Guitar Hero games but it’s still worth noting. There is an option to turn mic sensitivity to ‘off’ and I assume this would mean starpower could be activated by a button press, which may help but I haven’t yet experimented with this feature enough to know.
It’s still not perfect and hand cramping is a definite issue but overall if you’re looking for a portable Guitar Hero fix, On Tour is still a really good option. High Scores across profiles are a nice incentive to replay songs but in terms of rhythm games for the DS I still prefer Ouendan. It seems like the next version of Guitar Hero for the DS is being rushed out in only a few months, so there probably not going to be a whole lot of time to fix any of the problems in time for the next release and an online wi-fi option would’ve been nice but it’s still a very effective slim downed version of the console experience.
Rock On!
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Presentation - 8.5
The Guitar grip is a fairly good substitute for the console controller and the pick/stylus is a nice touch. The menu's are simple and effective.
Graphics - 7.5
Decent looking graphics during the performances but the DS doesn't do amazing 3D.
Sound - 8.0
26 songs, which are unfortunately noticeably compressed. Decent track selection though with Incubus, Chili Peppers and Nirvana being standouts.
Gameplay - 8.0
Activating starpower via the mic is slightly frustrating and strumming across the strings could be improved but still the classic Guitar Hero gameplay.
Lasting Appeal - 6.5
Not as many songs as the console versions but extended by battle mode and multiplayer. Hand cramps will definitely affect length of playtime though.
OVERALL - 7.8 (out of 10)
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