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Guitar Hero: On Tour

• By The Gamepros
• April 16, 2008 13:37 PM PST
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Soon we'll be able to pack up our Gibson SG and take the show on the road! We get our first look at the upcoming DS installment of best-selling rhythm series.

First Look:

If you're anything like me, your initial reaction when you heard the announcement for On Tour, a Guitar Hero title specially designed for the Nintendo DS, was one of immediate skepticism. Could they recreate the magic of everyone's favorite guitar-based rhythm game on the small screen? And could their intriguing custom controller- it features four buttons and slots into the GBA port- actually work?

None of us will know the answers to these questions until we get our hands on the final product. Developer Vicarious Visions certainly got my attention with their presentation at this year's Nintendo Media Summit. They showed off some of the game's features, showcased their new controller, and released a preliminary track listing.

On Tour makes full use of the DS functionality, reinventing one of the best music games around!

First things first: the new controller has got me itching to try it. The development history of the new peripheral is long and colorful; the mad scientists at Vicarious Visions apparently conducted a lot -and I mean a lot- of different experiments trying to come up with a control scheme that would work. Some of the prototypes were functional while others, including one that contained a ridiculous number of buttons, were just plain silly. But then came the lightning-in-a-bottle moment: the engineering team hacked together a four-button prototype that utilized the GBA port. And from the very moment they tried it, they knew they had stumbled onto something.

Not having tried out the controller, I can't comment on whether they succeeded or not. But you have to give Vicarious Visions credit for trying to innovative. Rather than slap some contrived control scheme that used the DS' face buttons or the stylus, they really went the extra mile, and I really hope that the controller fulfills its potential.

Though a full song list hasn't been released, from the look of this guitar we wonder if Van Halen will apper on in the game.

I was also intrigued by the work that they put into shrinking the iconic rhythm game experience of Guitar Hero so that it would fit on the DS. Early indications are that the butter-smooth gameplay remains intact and that the songs will push the limits of the DS' audio. The preliminary track list was contained mostly familiar songs but I'm going ot guess that Activision is going to wait to announce the really big stuff until later.

There's no doubt that there are a lot of question marks surrounding On Tour. The new peripheral and the reduced capabilities of the DS are just two roadblocks that Vicarious Visions has to navigate. Only time will tell if they succeeded but there's no denying that On Tour is one DS title that definitely bears watching.

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