I’ve been playing Guitar Hero: On Tour since it was released and it’s about time I write something on it. If you’re a GH fan, you’ll probably want to add this one to your library.

So the big question is, how do you play Guitar Hero on the DS? The game comes packaged with a special attachment that you connect in your GBA slot on your DS (it also has an attachment for people with the old DS models)

So here’s what I did, I played through the career mode in medium (I’m not good enough to play on a harder mode). There’s 25 songs in the career mode, divided in 5 different locations to play at. Like most games in the series, the songs get more difficult as you move along the career mode. It takes a little time to get used to the controls, especially for those who are used to playing on the guitar with only 3 fingers. So here’s how the controls works. The touch screen has your guitar on it, you strum on that screen with the custom guitar pick stylus. On the other screen, you see the notes come down in one of the four colors available. The star power is activated through the microphone or by pressing Select.

Now for the best part of the game, and also the part that cause my review to be delayed, the multiplayer. I had a hard time to find someone to play against locally, but once I did we played all night. I will focus this part on the duel mode, since the co-op is pretty much single player, only with two player instead.

Here’s your choice of attacks:

Attacks

Broken String : A random string will snap, you’ll need to use your stylus to connect two dots on the touch screen to fix it.

Signature : An item will appear on the touch screen, hiding your guitar, you’ll need to sign it.

Pyrotechnics : You touch screen will catch on fire, you’ll need to blow in the microphone to extinguish the flames.

Hyperspeed : The notes on the screen will go by twice as fast.

Camera Flash : Your screen will flash a couple of times, temporarily hiding your notes.

Screen Flip : The notes will now scroll on your touch screen. (You still strum on your touch screen, even if the guitar isn’t there)

Amp Overload : Mutes the music

Steal Item : Let’s you steal one item from your opponent from one of his three slots.

Difficulty Up : Raises the difficulty level by one for a short period of time.

Bomb Notes : Bombs appear randomly instead of note. These bombs should not be played.

Defense

Difficulty Down : Lowers the difficulty level by one for a short period of time.

Shield : Block attacks for a short period of time.

As you can see there’s a pretty big selection of items available. You can have a maximum of three items stored. You can only have one defense or attack activated on yourself. For example, if you have difficulty down on yourself your opponent can’t attack you while it’s active.

So did I enjoy Guitar Hero: On Tour? Yes, I did. It’s a little bit short with only 25 songs, but the multiplayer keeps me coming back to it, especially since a couple of my friend got the game. I recommend it to any guitar hero fan out there that wants a portable version, especially if you have a friend buying it with you.

Full Song List

Official Website