Excellent Execution, But Why Bother?

Final Thoughts: Other than the fact that scores of people love Guitar Hero, I’m not sure why Activision thought it would be a good idea to port the series to a handheld console like the Nintendo DS.

Half the fun of Guitar Hero is cranking up the settings on your sound system to max and wailing on your Fisher Price-esque guitar while you're naked in your undies. On a handheld console, you lose half this experience right off the bat.

Admittedly, Activision’s solution to simulating the guitar is pretty neat and works reasonably well. Instead of a plastic guitar, the game comes packaged with a four-button attachment that plugs into the system’s Game Boy Advance slot, and you strum the notes with the touchpad.

Pretty neat, but there are some definite flaws to the rest of the game. Due to the nature of the DS cartridges, the sound quality is of a much lower grade, the graphics wound the eyes and the song selection is fairly limited (only 25 tracks). Plus, the song selection blows.

I can only recommend Guitar Hero: On Tour to those of you with a hard-on for the franchise and/or $50 to blow. If you fall into either category, consider picking up your copy this Sunday, June 22th.