Guitar Hero On Tour: Modern Hits (DS) Review

Posted by Drew Robbins on 07.18.2009

It feels like it was only a year ago that the first of the DS Guitar Hero games came out...oh wait, it was, and now here we have the third edition, now with a focus on Modern Hits. Is it worth strapping on the Guitar Grip once more, or should this iteration be avoided?



Title: Guitar Hero On Tour: Modern Hits
Publisher: Activision
Developer: Vicarious Visions
Genre: Rhythm, Music
Players: 1-2
Rated: E 10+ for Everyone of 10 Years or Older

Mario is often cited as the king of milked franchises, but you must understand something. His milking took place over several console generations, throughout several years. Mario is an established icon that has been around since the late 80’s, so it isn’t surprising to see several games baring his likeness on store shelves.

Guitar Hero, however, is not even four years old. The game has only been around since 2005 and already it has so many sequels and spin-offs that even Final Fantasy thinks this is getting out of control. On Tour is the portable spin-off for the DS, and with a good year under its belt, now spans three entries, including Modern Hits. Do I really have to tell you what this is about? You play guitar, now to the tune of modern hits. Oh yeah, and did I mention you can’t play this game on the DSi?

GAMEPLAY

If you have played any of the thousand spin-offs over the past few years, then you will get the gist of Modern Hits. Several colored notes scroll down the screen and you jam fret buttons and strum to the beat. Of course, as this is a portable, this has all been shrunk to a fun-sized package that can easily be carried around. Gone is the plastic guitar, and in its stead is some horrible offspring that looks like it would fit better with a game called Accordion Hero. The instant appeal of flailing around on a guitar replica has been lost and it instantly hurts the experience. It’s a lot like playing Guitar Hero with a gamepad. Sure you still get to experience the basic gameplay, but what’s the point? Also of note is that the Guitar Grip is by far the most painful game controller I’ve ever played with. Even with my small-ish hands I felt the need to take breaks ever two songs because my hands were attacked with a vicious surge of pain.

I think you get the point, I’m not a fan of the Guitar Grip, but lets not dwell on that one little subject. Taken as its own game, when not compared to the rock star experience given by console versions, the gameplay is competent. My main complaint with the console franchise is that the notes are often found all over the place and have almost no correlation with the actual song, and that seems to be less of the case here. It’s no Rock Band in this category, but it’s a huge improvement over the embarrassment that was Guitar Hero III.

Progression through the setlist is made in the game’s career mode, as usual, which sets your band on a tour of five different concerts, each featuring a headline act and an opening act. Despite what logic would suggest, defeating the opening act won’t earn you the chance to play through the headline act. Instead, you have to venture to the other concerts, and then come back later to finish up the concert. I know Guitar Hero isn’t known for its realism but…really now? In what scenario would a band start a concert, leave, and then come back a few weeks later to wrap things up. Aerosmith doesn’t perform “Dream On,” take a trip to the Bahamas, and then wrap things up with “Cryin’” a few months later. It doesn’t make any sense, but the career mode advancement just gets worse from there.



In the other On Tour games, as it was done originally in the series, the career mode consisted of playing a concert of about five songs, and then advancing to the next concert with five more songs unlocked. This was simple, efficient, and most importantly, fun! On Tour suffers from a similar problem to Rock Band’s World Tour mode, you are likely going to be forced to play songs you dislike multiple times. Unless you find the Modern Hits soundtrack completely flawless, you are going to be venturing through some of your least favorite songs multiple times, thanks to the new fan requests feature. Instead of the aforementioned progression from concert to concert, you have to earn a certain amount of fans to move forward. Simply playing through the songs normally won’t get you enough, so you’ll have to play some of the songs once again, but now with a twist. Now you must appease the fans who desire that you play through “Violet Hill” without missing 10% of your notes, or finishing “Chelsea’s Dagger” without strumming.

Yeah, you read that right, some of these requests remove strumming or fret buttons. This concept doesn’t work in the least. When you take away half of the challenge, Guitar Hero ceases to be fun. It’s more like just listening to the music, and in the case of this soundtrack, that is certainly not a good thing.

GRAPHICS

The DS has never been known as a graphical powerhouse, which is why, much like with the Wii, developers often go for something a little more stylized to avoid just looking like completely watered down experiences. Guitar Hero doesn’t fit into this category of stylized, and instead goes for the “Bad 64 Game” look that is so familiar to the system.

I’m not going to dwell too much on the character models, you spend about 2% of your game experience actually looking at them, so I will instead give props where they are due. The note map actually looks pretty decent in comparison to the rest of the experience. Also of note is the guitar on the touch screen, which is only passable, but I will admit that its pretty cool to see your chosen guitar as you strum it, as opposed to hardly ever seeing it as you do in the console experiences.

Everything else about the graphics in this game has a boring, quickly thrown together feel to it, but luckily, its status as a rhythm game prevents this from being a major griping point.



SOUND

My faith in modern music had been restored by Rock Band 2, a game featuring several modern hits which I found to be completely tolerable, and even quite enjoyable. However, if I had never heard a single song since the 1980’s, and you had forced me to listen to the Modern Hits soundtrack, I would stick to the common philosophy that all new music sucks and should be banished from the planet.

To be fair, there were about five songs that I actually enjoyed. But for every good song there were about three by “Generic Modern Artist A.” When it comes to rhythm games, I don’t particularly care if the song has substance, as long as it is catchy…and most of these tunes just didn’t draw me in.

Of course, as much as I’d love to rip the game based only on the soundtrack, it wouldn’t be fair to score it based on personal music preference. The sound score should be based on the audio quality, which in this case, is actually pretty impressive for the DS. None of the songs sound as if they were hampered in the transition to the portable, though I must say that the “missed note” sound is particularly painful in this game.

LASTING APPEAL

The lasting appeal certainly suffers in the transition from the consoles. Though you could have over 80 songs in any regular Guitar Hero, the DS versions suffer from a lack of memory space and only allow you an experience consisting of a little over 20 songs. Still, that number is good enough to keep you playing for a while, provided you enjoy the set list. If not, well, I’ve got some bad news for you…



FUN FACTOR

As much as I lambaste the series, its hard not to have fun playing a Guitar Hero game. Mashing frets and strumming along is still just as fun to me as it was four years ago, but the fun can come to a quick end thanks to the uncomfortable new controller. Modern Hits is a game designed intently for short bursts, lest you desire unfathomable pain upon your hand.

THE 411

What most any Guitar Hero or Rock Band game comes down to is the set list, and I fully suggest that you check that out before purchasing this game. If you aren’t fond of the songs available, the game certainly isn’t worth shelling out $50 for. Also take into consideration that the new career mode is horribly repetitive. Due to that, I’d recommend Vicarious Vision’s second effort with the franchise, Decades, as a more reasonable purchase, unless you are a modern music fanatic.

Graphics	6.0	Merely passable, most of it looks like a bad N64 game, with the frets being the only real high-point.
Gameplay	7.0	Its Guitar Hero, minus the charm and plus agonizing pain. Still manages to be fun, somehow.
Sound	9.0	The star of the show, as would be expected, despite a mostly forgettable soundtrack.
Lasting Appeal	7.5	This is entirely dependent on your enjoyment of the soundtrack.
Fun Factor	7.0	Still fun, despite a bad career mode, with many of the songs being fun to strum along to, regardless of the song's quality.
Overall	7.0   [ Good ]