Guitar Hero: On Tour - Details Announced

Details Released

As reported through Yahoo and IGN, Activision has announced the details for the forthcoming Guitar Hero for the Nintendo DS - Guitar Hero: On Tour

Guitar Hero: On Tour is being developed by Vicarious Visions who have been developing other games for the Nintendo DS, most notably the Tony Hawk and Spider-Man series. They also have experience with the Guitar Hero series as they handled the conversion for the Nintendo Wii Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock game.

Guitar Hero: On Tour will see similar game play to the console versions of Guitar Hero, but will have an add-on control for the DS that Red Octane is developing, calling it the Guitar Grip. The Guitar Grip will allow players to play with ‘frets’ similar to those found on the Guitar Hero guitars.

Picture of the Guitar Hero: On Tour with the ‘Guitar Grip’

Controls

The ‘Guitar Grip’ will plug into the DS, in the Gameboy Advance Slot. The game will be played in the DS’s vertical book form, with players placing their hands through the strap on the Guitar Grip, will strumming across the on screen guitar with the DS Stylus. The Guitar Grip will feature only 4 buttons as opposed the the familiar 5 with a full sized guitar, but the game still looks very impressive.

The microphone will likely come into play, as IGN is noting that on the video released by Activision, the microphone appears to trigger Star Power.

The idea for the Guitar Grip came after trying about 20 different prototypes for the controller. They first tried a mini guitar controller, but none had the desired effect of ease of play or portability that they were looking for.

“We began prototyping ideas for Guitar Hero on DS in early 2007,” said Vicarious Visions CEO Karthik Bala. “We figured that attaching a full-size guitar or even a mini-guitar would be too awkward to play on the road, hence the design of the more compact Guitar Grip, which gives you the tactile sense of the fret buttons, with the touch screen depicting the strings of the guitar.”

Additional Details

Activision has yet to release all of the details of the game, but here is what we know so far.

Guitar Hero: On Tour will feature the usual single player career mode progression, just like the console versions of Guitar Hero. On Tour will also support multi-player with both co-op and competitive modes using the local wireless feature built in the Nintendo DS.

On Tour will also feature more than 20 licensed songs. While the titles have yet to be announced, the bands that have been confirmed are OK Go, No Doubt, and Nirvana. One would have to suspect that “Here It Goes Again” by OK Go would be the song Activision picked up for the game as it is their biggest hit by far, and became very popular due to the video.

Six guitarists will be featured in the game, with 2 of them being new guitarists exclusive to Guitar Hero: On Tour.

Battle mode will be similar to that developed for Guitar Hero III, with some of the power-ups having been developed exclusively for On Tour.

For example, players can activate power-ups that’ll send raving fans to the other screen, and the opponent will have to sign autographs on the touchscreen to get rid of them. Or out-of-control pyrotechnics will be set ablaze, and players will have to blow them out using the Nintendo DS microphone.

More Info To Come

Activision has not announced a price for Guitar Hero: On Tour yet, nor have they announced an actual date for release, but they have said that it will be this Summer.

We’re still trying to wrap our heads around how the control will work. We’re pantoming the motion with our hands and wondering if we will like it. What do you think?

Related Links:
Date and Price announced for Guitar Hero: On Tour
Guitar Hero: On Tour Desktop Wallpapers
Story and Scoop by IGN

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