Game: Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 2
Platform:PS3; Xbox 360
Publisher: Activision
Developer: Vicarious Visions
ESRB: Everyone
Genre: Tiny Guitar Hero
Players: 1-2
What's Hot: The new tracklist brings a nice amount of modern music to the handheld versions of Guitar Hero
What's Not: Three DS Guitar Hero games in less than a year? And you can't play it if you own a DSi
Review by: Brendon Lindsey
It's June, and that means it's time for at least one more Guitar Hero game! Remember when Guitar Hero was new and not milked to hell? Seems like such a long time ago... but, those times are long gone, and it's time for the third Guitar Hero: On Tour game for the Nintendo DS within a 12 month span. Huzzah!
First, the bad news: Guitar Hero On Tour: Modern Hits does not work with the new Nintendo DSi, since it has no GBA slot for the little fret add-on. While there has been talk of Activision releasing a DSi compatible version of the game (with DLC?), for now, those who swapped their DS or DS Lite for a DSi will not be able to play this game.
Then again, if you've ever played a Guitar Hero: On Tour title in the last 12 months, you've already played it.
Like the previous versions, the game is played through a combination of a GBA slot peripheral, and the touchscreen. The peripheral plugs into your GBA slot, and sports four colored frets. As notes scroll by, you push these frets in, and strum on the touchscreen. It was a brilliant way to adapt Guitar Hero to the handheld last year, and it remains a brilliant format now. Granted, it's not nearly as challenging or fun as using the actual guitar controllers, but it's as close as it gets, and way more fun than playing with a standard controller on the console versions.
Modern Hits sports two unique elements: the new track list, and a new "fan request" mechanism to progress through the career mode. The track list is obviously the sell-or-pass point of the game. With 28 popular songs from the last few years, it really does live up to the name of "Modern Hits" -- although there are certainly going to be some songs on the list that you hate, and some that you wish were in the game. But really, isn't that the case with every music game?
The other new feature is the fan request progression. Rather than just play through a setlist, unlocking the next setlist, and repeating until all songs are available, you'll have to play through songs, unlock fan requests, and then complete fan requests to unlock the next set.
Fan requests differ from regular playing, because they give you actual goals. For example, you may need to beat a song and use the whammy X number of times; or beat a song by getting a certain percentage of notes right in a certain portion. It's a nice change of pace from the norm of the Guitar Hero franchise's career progression, but to me it's a little unnecessary. Playing songs is playing songs, regardless of whether or not you tell me to use the whammy bar four times, or get a 6x multiplier going.
Basically, Guitar Hero On Tour: Modern Hits is like any other Guitar Hero sequel that doesn't drastically change the gameplay experience. If you like the track list, or have friends you want to play multiplayer with, then get the game. If you don't like the songs, then don't. Now, who wants to place an over/under bet on whether or not we'll see two more DS(i) versions of Guitar Hero before the end of 2009? Anyone?
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