Release Date: June 22nd, 2008
Rating: Everyone 10+ - Lyrics
Available On: Nintendo DS
Genre: Music
Number of Players: 1-2 (multiple cartridge, local wireless)
Strong Points: Gameplay is Guitar Hero on the go; pretty graphics; decent setlist
Weak Points: Setlist is only 26 songs deep; some songs don't translate to Guitar Hero that well; control system can be difficult and cause cramps due to its size and form
Technical Score: B
Artistic Score: C+
Final Score (not an average): C-
Moral Warnings: Some characters are immodestly dressed; some lyrics contain profanity, sexual allusions/references, and drug references
For the unaware, Guitar Hero has been challenging gamers and non-gamers alike to pick up a simplified version of an electric guitar and strum along with hits of the last few decades. The formula is simple: hit the right buttons at the right time (portrayed by buttons coming towards the player) and strum in time with the music. The execution is surprisingly addictive, and the multiplayer aspects of the series have practically made it a household name.
With incarnations of the series on the Playstation 2, Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii, Activision decided that it was time to expand its reach into handheld gaming territory. In many respects, the transition from a guitar peripheral and the big screen to a palm-sized controller and the small screen is made with surprising success.
This is due, in no small part, to the fingerboard attachment that comes with the game. This board offers four buttons (instead of the original five of the game's older siblings) and plugs into GBA cartridge slot of the DS Lite (or into the original DS with an included adapter).
Of course, this fingerboard adapter is also the game's biggest downfall. It's true that it gives a somewhat similar feel to the console controllers, but, in execution, it simply doesn't work as well. The first problem is that the buttons are too small, and placed too close together, to be functional for anyone with remotely large hands. Worse yet, the nature of the controller (and the somewhat awkward way of having to hold it) has a tendency to cause hand cramping in a short amount of time. Adding insult to injury, the strap that is part of the attachment tends to be too loose to work right or tight enough to make finger movements a challenge.
These complaints, serious as they are, could be overlooked if the attachment were easy to use, but it really isn't. The song difficulties, even on Expert, are much simpler than what was seen in the console games. Still, maintaining note streaks (and, in some cases, even completing songs) is very challenging due to the controls. Indeed, the game's challenge comes much more from the controls than the songs themselves. This is not the case with the console games.
Not all is terrible with the controls on the DS, however. As mentioned in our preview of the game, strumming with the touch screen is much more natural and fluid (for guitarists, especially) than the clicking of the strum bar on the console peripherals is. Activating the score multiplier, Star Power, is also very simple with the touch screen. Use of the "whammy bar" is intuitive, too.
Beyond the controls, the game very much plays like its older siblings. The main game progresses by picking a character to play as and proceeding to show mastery over songs that pick up difficulty in a fairly gradual way. Four levels of difficulty (each with increasingly complex fingerings) are present. Shooting for high scores by minimizing the number of notes missed is a major part of the game's replay factor.
Which is a good thing because the game's song list only has 26 tracks. That may sound decent, but, at three-to-four minutes a song, that's only two hours of gameplay if played in one sitting. That setlist is less than half the length of the other games in the series. Then again, considering that this is a DS game, there isn't a great deal of room for complaining (due to the technical limitations of the media).
The setlist, while not the best ever, is very solid. With a decent variety of genres and eras, there's a little bit of a lot of sounds. If not for the control issues, many of the songs would be a lot of fun to play. What is actually impressive is how good the songs sound through the DS hardware. Most of the tracks were made using original master tracks from the actual band recordings, which is nice in itself. Still, the overall sound quality is very good.
Graphically, the game is also fairly pretty. The crowd is very simplified, and the venues themselves are not really phenomenal, but the character models are surprisingly smooth and detailed for the DS hardware. The guitar images, including the scrolling fretboards, capture the look and feel of the other games in the series pretty well, too. The special effects (few as they are) also help the transition to the handheld.
Morally, the gameplay itself presents little to be concerned with. However, most of the female characters could use a little more clothing; one of the male characters wears no shirt. The only other real concern is in the realm of the lyrics. "Are You Gonna Be My Girl" laments that a girl "was with another man." "Black Magic Woman" uses light magical terminology to describe being in love. "Helicopter" includes a usage of "b------." "I Don't Wanna Stop" refers to drug usage, distaste for religion, and it mentions masturbation. "I Am Not Your Gameboy" contains a lyric that has sexual implications. "Jessie's Girl" revolves around a guy wanting his friend's girlfriend for himself. "Knock Me Down" refers to being high. "La Grange" alludes to bar-going. "This Love" refers to being high, and is very sexual in nature.
In the end, Guitar Hero: On Tour is an example of missed potential. On paper, everything lines up for On Tour to thoroughly impress handheld gamers. It looks pretty, it sounds good, and it even includes a guitar attachment. In execution, the game flops due to the awkwardness of the attachment (and the undue difficulty it brings to the table). For those with small hands (or extreme dexterity and/or patience), the game is exactly what it looks like: Guitar Hero on the go. The only problem is that it just isn't really Guitar Hero.
-Kenny Yeager (kenny@revolve21.com)
No comments:
Post a Comment