Public Humiliation… Now Private!

I don't claim to have my finger on the pulse of the entire video game industry, but I know what I know. I recall first seeing Guitar Hero at RedOctane's booth on the floor of a trade show in New York City. Cool idea, I thought, but no one really wants to play this game with a standard PS2 controller, you really need a big plastic guitar with buttons, but who's going to go for that?

Everyone in the civilized world, apparently.

I was wrong, and I was very happy for RedOctane, as I am whenever a designer so successfully taps into gamers' desires, even if we didn't know we had them. Flash forward a couple of years, when I was invited to a private preview of Guitar Hero 2, this time in a professional music recording studio.

This would be the first time I actually tried the game hands-on, and thank goodness the walls were soundproofed, as I fumbled my way through what I mistakenly assumed would be a slam dunk, my personal air-guitar favorite, Tears for Fears' Shout. When I finished—and not a moment too soon—I received the sympathetic, pursed-lip nod from my hosts. They might have actually sent the guitar back to the quality control lab, to check for defects.

Turns out there's a reason why so many people play their video games alone in the basement.

Here we are now in the summer of 2008, and the Guitar Hero franchise has rightly become the stuff of legends, driven across all platforms by an army of fans far more musically gifted than I. The South Park episode removed all doubt about the game's profound cultural impact. So where to take Guitar Hero next?

Like many games before it, Guitar Hero: On Tour makes inspired use of the DS hardware's capabilities. The box is filled with all manner of, you know, stuff: two sheets of decals, an adapter to accommodate the original DS handheld, and most importantly the Guitar Hero Guitar Grip which, when easily installed, puts the fret board where it feels right (or left) to approximate the axe-wielding experience. A new pick-shaped stylus to use on the touchscreen is stored inside The Grip.

The game is also being sold in a bundle with a limited edition silver/black DS Lite. And to my point about privacy—and the safety of others—Activision was thoughtful enough to send me a pair of bonus Guitar Hero: On Tour earbuds. (The title cleverly refers to the newfound portability, in case you missed it.)

The most serious shredders will want to pursue the Career mode, while less demanding Quickplay and helpful Practice modes are also an option. We can play with or against a friend over the DS' wireless local network. Here are the basics to becoming a guitar hero: We see colored musical notes scrolling down the screen, and we press one of the four colored fret buttons on the Grip at the right moment with one hand, strumming the stylus on the screen at the same time with the other hand. If we see a long trail off a note, that's a Sustain, and we need to hold the button down as long as it lasts. We'll encounter chords, too: Two or more notes simultaneously.

High capacity on the game cartridge results in less compression and superior sonic fidelity, and as on the console versions of the games, each track is on three separate channels. The 26 songs included are a mix of original master recordings and covers by either Line 6 or Wavegroup, but the familiarity and variety make for great fun.

Anyone who ever attended a Rick Springfield or ZZ Top concert (that would be me) should feel right at home, while admirers of Ozzy, Maroon 5, The Doobies, Kiss, Daughtry and others won't be disappointed, either.

Playing is a little like walking and chewing gum at the same time, and the book-like layout of the DS is somewhat awkward. We are staring down at the virtual strings, more like Zither Hero, but all in all it is a smart transition of the Guitar Hero experience to a new format.

We can personalize not just lefty or righty but also with multiple Gibson guitars and some new onscreen characters. Of the different multiplayer modes, most inspired is a nasty Guitar Duel, where we might find ourselves cutting or repairing a string, signing autographs for fans and even blowing out pyrotechnics gone wrong, via the DS microphone.

Only a week later, RedOctane unleashed the latest console iteration of the series, Guitar Hero: Aerosmith. Although obviously dedicated to single band, a dozen of the 31 Career songs are by other acts, performers they either held in high regard or who have worked with them in the past. Some of the third-party tunes are cover versions.

The rest—including the ten additional tracks unlockable from “The Vault"—are by Aerosmith, including the Run DMC collaboration on Walk This Way and four by their own bona fide guitar hero gone solo, Joe Perry. A handful of these have been rerecorded by Aerosmith to work better within the context of the game.

They know what works by this point and game play here is similar to all other versions, with the same goal—to reproduce each song as accurately as possible—only now I'd strapped on a Bluetooth Fender guitar, and it felt pretty darned good. The game is available either by itself or combined with a Gibson guitar controller and limited edition faceplate, plus other doodads.

For much of the game we can choose to play as lead guitarist Perry, or against him in a rousing Guitar Battle. I imagine that the challenge here is the same as it is for real musicians learning their craft, that at some point you strop thinking about every single note and you just feel it. I'm not even a touch-typist, sad to say, but I can equate the fretting, strumming, sustaining et al to combo moves in a fighting game, and when you're in the zone and doing it all together, you think you're invincible.

The sense of history surrounding Aerosmith is conveyed in the six stages of the game, from their humble beginnings, to their comeback, to their performances in Moscow, at The Super Bowl, and ultimately the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. The online component allows us to musically grapple with strangers in faraway lands, and post scores on leaderboards. At press time, no additional content was available for purchase/download via the PlayStation Store.

Meanwhile, the sense of humor is on display in the opening animation, although it looks a bit compressed over the 720p output. Video quality in the game itself, which includes extensive body and facial motion capture of the entire band, is more enjoyable, with detailed light effects and really wild colors.

The sound however is at times amazing. As expected, the Dolby Digital 5.1 does a great job with aggressive crowd noise from the rears, but also pipes in Aerosmith tunes in between performances with remarkable clarity and dynamic range, while our performances (good or bad) are adequately realistic. The game can also be calibrated for HDTV audio lag.

On big screen or small, Guitar Hero remains a fabulous way to release your inner rock star. Just keep in mind that classic joke, "How do you get to Carnegie Hall…?"

Guitar Hero: On Tour for Nintendo DS
Publisher: RedOctane
Developer: Vicarious Visions

Guitar Hero: Aerosmith for Sony PlayStation 3
Publisher: RedOctane
Developer: Neversoft

GuitarHeroGame.com
RedOctane.com
Activision.com