Sounds Good
The sound quality of the music is excellent and Guitar Hero: On Tour really shines for a DS title as the songs present in the preview version all seemed to sound very clean with minimal distortion or static. Even through the DS' rather tiny on-board speakers, it was still easy to hear and follow the beats in Blink 182's "All the Small Things" and No Doubt's "Spiderwebs."
Of course, a major draw to any Guitar Hero title is the set list, and Guitar Hero: On Tour features a nice mix of hair-metal classics, more current pop-punk scorchers and perennial shredding favorites. One thing that can be said about every track in On Tour is that they are all perfectly suited to rocking out with a guitar, and each one seems hand-picked from the back catalog of the Guitar Hero legacy for maximum jamming.
Persnickety Peripheral
The basic mechanics of Guitar Hero: On Tour work in a similar fashion to the console versions: you strum the guitar strings on the DS' touch-screen with a simulated pick/stylus while holding down the multi-colored keys on the strapped-on doodad. Star Power can be activated by jabbing the pick at a specific place on the touch-screen or by pressing one of the DS' face buttons.
While fairly innovative, there are a couple of design issues that stand in the way of Guitar Hero: On Tour's freaky peripheral being truly user-friendly. First off, in order to play On Tour you have to bend your wrist sideways in order to tilt the DS into a "book-style" orientation. This doesn't seem like a huge deal since Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword required a similar method of play. But the essential difference between On Tour and Dragon Sword is that the latter does not require you to strap your hand into your DS in order to play it. On Tour not only demands that, but also that you use the fingers of your twisted hand to manipulate the multi-colored guitar chords.
This unnatural cant to your wrist can also be a source of frustration as it impacts your ability to actually hit the appropriate keys at the appropriate times. Playing on the easiest difficulty works well, because you don't have to use the blue fourth fret, but high difficulty settings are more problematic. During serious play, the tilt of your wrist is liable to gradually scoot your fingers away from the fourth fret, and reaching down to hit it can be difficult if you're not paying close attention.
The peripheral is attached via the GBA cartridge slot on the bottom of the DS, so it can come unplugged during particularly hectic songs. Granted, our testing yielded only one incidence of the peripheral coming unplugged from the DS after roughly an hour of play so it's not like it happens all the time. Hopefully, the developers can come up with a more graceful way to deal with the peripheral unseating than requiring you to restart your DS (the current method). We imagine a small plastic lip would secure it nicely and prevent unseating in the first place.
Still, all of the makings for a good Guitar Hero game are present in On Tour: good-quality jams and lots of them.
