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| The Entertainment Review |
| Genre: Music Developer: Vicarious Visions Publisher: Activision |
It is hard to believe that the Guitar Hero On Tour series has been around for less than a year and players are already seeing the third
game in the series with “Guitar Hero On Tour: Modern Hits.” It is almost unheard of for a publisher to release an original game and two
sequels in less than a year. It is difficult to ignore the fact that the game seems to be a cash-in strategy that Activision pushed onto the
Nintendo DS, though each game does have a quality standalone value. The first time that the series hit the Nintendo DS, it was an
amazing feat to be seen. However, now that the novelty of the control system has worn off, players will be left with a lot of the same thing.
“Guitar Hero On Tour: Modern Hits” continues with the legacy of the series on the Nintendo DS. Again, instead of playing fake guitar on
a full sized guitar peripheral like on the console, players will be getting the same experience on the Nintendo DS with the Guitar Grip
peripheral that mimics the buttons on the neck of the console guitar, with the touch screen providing the necessary strum motion from
the included stylus pick. When players combine the strumming on the touch screen and the fingering on the Guitar Grip, they get a
great portable Guitar Hero experience. While playing the full sized guitar is a lot more fun and a lot less taxing on the wrist, the
portability of the game is nice for those who don’t want to carry around a console and guitar where ever they may want to play the game.
It is no mystery how Activision and Vicarious Visions are able to release several Guitar Hero titles on the Nintendo DS so quickly. Since
the sequels all use the same technology that was built into the original release, most of the game is simply recycled. The core engine
at work in the game allow the developers can focus more of their time on switching out the character models, venues and the overall
track list of songs for each of the Guitar Hero products.
Once again players are offered more than 25 songs that span hits from over the past five years. Players will get music from Tenacious
D, Lenny Kravitz, Evanenscence, Coldplay and more, and each of the songs can be played in lead guitar and bass/rhythm guitar, each
with their own note highways to play in Easy, Medium, Hard and Expert levels. On top of all of this, the inherent song streaming
technology of the previous two games means that the excellent multiplayer feature of wirelessly linking any version of Guitar Hero On
Tour can be found in “Guitar Hero On Tour: Modern hits.” This means that players can have more than 50 songs available in the
cooperative and competitive two player mode if they link the new release with the previous two titles.
For those who have already played through a Guitar Hero On Tour game on the Nintendo DS, the experience will be pretty much the
same as before, at least during the game play. What has changed this time around is the overall structure of the game. Instead of
players working their way through a set list to unlock the next group of songs by playing the batch that precedes it, player progress is
built around playing smaller sets of songs at different venues and then performing fan requests to unlock access to the next venue.
Some fan requests will ask players to hit a 6X Multiplier or hit 100 notes in a row, the possibilities go on and on. This may not be the
best game structure for a title like this, but it is still a lot of fun and changes things up a little bit from what many have come to know from
the series.
The new Fan Request system does tend to get a little repetitive after a while and would have been a really bad move if players would
have been forced to play through the entire set list in this fashion, but luckily that isn’t the case. It would be a little disappointing to play
three songs in a venue, but then have to play those songs a second time in order to move onto the next batch of songs. While this is the
case for the Career Mode in the game, for the players who want to simply set high scores in the two dozen songs in the game, players
can luckily go through them all right away in Quick Play Mode, since every song is unlocked from the time it is first turned on.
The set list offered in “Guitar Hero On Tour: Modern Hits” is fairly solid, and the change in the venue structure of the game shifts things
around a little bit, but it isn’t as easy to get excited for this edition of the game because of the fact that the novelty of the game has worn
off a bit since the series made its way to the Nintendo DS. Though the game is able to stand on its own, the oversaturation of the
franchise in the past year is an issue that some may have with it. The first time around the game was amazing and innovative, the
second time around it was still fairly impressive, the third time around the game doesn’t offer much to set itself apart from its
predecessors, but “Guitar Hero On Tour: Modern Hits” still rocks.
game in the series with “Guitar Hero On Tour: Modern Hits.” It is almost unheard of for a publisher to release an original game and two
sequels in less than a year. It is difficult to ignore the fact that the game seems to be a cash-in strategy that Activision pushed onto the
Nintendo DS, though each game does have a quality standalone value. The first time that the series hit the Nintendo DS, it was an
amazing feat to be seen. However, now that the novelty of the control system has worn off, players will be left with a lot of the same thing.
“Guitar Hero On Tour: Modern Hits” continues with the legacy of the series on the Nintendo DS. Again, instead of playing fake guitar on
a full sized guitar peripheral like on the console, players will be getting the same experience on the Nintendo DS with the Guitar Grip
peripheral that mimics the buttons on the neck of the console guitar, with the touch screen providing the necessary strum motion from
the included stylus pick. When players combine the strumming on the touch screen and the fingering on the Guitar Grip, they get a
great portable Guitar Hero experience. While playing the full sized guitar is a lot more fun and a lot less taxing on the wrist, the
portability of the game is nice for those who don’t want to carry around a console and guitar where ever they may want to play the game.
It is no mystery how Activision and Vicarious Visions are able to release several Guitar Hero titles on the Nintendo DS so quickly. Since
the sequels all use the same technology that was built into the original release, most of the game is simply recycled. The core engine
at work in the game allow the developers can focus more of their time on switching out the character models, venues and the overall
track list of songs for each of the Guitar Hero products.
Once again players are offered more than 25 songs that span hits from over the past five years. Players will get music from Tenacious
D, Lenny Kravitz, Evanenscence, Coldplay and more, and each of the songs can be played in lead guitar and bass/rhythm guitar, each
with their own note highways to play in Easy, Medium, Hard and Expert levels. On top of all of this, the inherent song streaming
technology of the previous two games means that the excellent multiplayer feature of wirelessly linking any version of Guitar Hero On
Tour can be found in “Guitar Hero On Tour: Modern hits.” This means that players can have more than 50 songs available in the
cooperative and competitive two player mode if they link the new release with the previous two titles.
For those who have already played through a Guitar Hero On Tour game on the Nintendo DS, the experience will be pretty much the
same as before, at least during the game play. What has changed this time around is the overall structure of the game. Instead of
players working their way through a set list to unlock the next group of songs by playing the batch that precedes it, player progress is
built around playing smaller sets of songs at different venues and then performing fan requests to unlock access to the next venue.
Some fan requests will ask players to hit a 6X Multiplier or hit 100 notes in a row, the possibilities go on and on. This may not be the
best game structure for a title like this, but it is still a lot of fun and changes things up a little bit from what many have come to know from
the series.
The new Fan Request system does tend to get a little repetitive after a while and would have been a really bad move if players would
have been forced to play through the entire set list in this fashion, but luckily that isn’t the case. It would be a little disappointing to play
three songs in a venue, but then have to play those songs a second time in order to move onto the next batch of songs. While this is the
case for the Career Mode in the game, for the players who want to simply set high scores in the two dozen songs in the game, players
can luckily go through them all right away in Quick Play Mode, since every song is unlocked from the time it is first turned on.
The set list offered in “Guitar Hero On Tour: Modern Hits” is fairly solid, and the change in the venue structure of the game shifts things
around a little bit, but it isn’t as easy to get excited for this edition of the game because of the fact that the novelty of the game has worn
off a bit since the series made its way to the Nintendo DS. Though the game is able to stand on its own, the oversaturation of the
franchise in the past year is an issue that some may have with it. The first time around the game was amazing and innovative, the
second time around it was still fairly impressive, the third time around the game doesn’t offer much to set itself apart from its
predecessors, but “Guitar Hero On Tour: Modern Hits” still rocks.
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