Review: Guitar Hero On Tour: Decades (NDS)

Cynical though it may be, Guitar Hero: On Tour is actually a lot of fun, jettisoning the extraneous fluff associated with Guitar Hero (namely pretending to be an actual rock star) and distilling the game down to a simple four-finger work-out to some catchy music. It may not be authentic, but the joy of arranging your fingers into position in correct time and hearing the satisfying result is present and correct, and the cute little plectrum stylus is the icing on the cake.

It's no surprise, then, that Guitar Hero On Tour: Decades is a "more of the same" situation, another selection of songs and nothing more. You can use your existing Guitar Grip and save yourself a few quid, as the new one is the same but in a different colour. Sadly, if you found the first game unbearably uncomfortable, nothing's changed. This is still a crippling exercise for most adult-size hands and it takes a considerable effort to get into a comfortable position where your fingers are free and the whole contraption doesn't fly out of the cartridge slot.

Once you're in your comfort zone, though, you will notice a few changes to the game's structure. Songs have been arranged, as the title suggests, into decades, starting with modern (2007) songs, working backwards, through yet more of the noughties, then nineties, eighties (a high point, that one) and ending with a selection of seventies tracks, culminating in a lovely-to-play-but-far-too-long hit from Lynyrd Skynyrd (no, not that one). It's still weighted towards the modern era, plus a few of the other songs are available in other Guitar Hero or Rock Band titles, so veterans may notice a lot of cross-over. Another issue is that the songs are no longer arranged by difficulty, so the learning curve of the first game is absent here. Once again, songs are 'locked' until you play them in career mode, which is archaic and unnecessary, but we've been complaining about that since year dot, so whatever.

One of the 'improvements' made to Decades is in how star power is activated. No longer does a tap of the gauge count as a strum, presumably because lots of people complained about it in the first game. This is fine for slow songs, but when you're shredding through a constant stream of notes, you now have to add an extra tap to activate star power, and risk losing your multiplier bonus. Granted, you can still shout or blow into the mic to do the same thing, but the more elegant solution is missed.

As for the music, there are certainly some good tunes in here, but again it's a selection of less than 30 due to space limits. The sound quality is acceptable through headphones - the same as the first game - but of course it won't blow you away. Some songs are edited or have abrupt endings to stop them trailing off, but at least now they're all master recordings with no cover versions. The main impression here is that many songs have been included due to popularity more than suitability; entries from the Foo Fighters, Jimmy Eat World and Fall Out Boy are just exercises in strumming the same notes over and over again; on expert difficulty this is tiring on the strumming hand, but not quite quick enough to allow for accurate 'scratch-strumming'. Say what you like about the first game's selection of songs, but they were very well suited to the touch-pad and four-button setup, whereas these are a little hit and miss.

In addition to the normal career, you can now play a bass/rhythm career, working your way through the venues as the band's backing musician. This is, however, quite boring compared to the lead guitar. A more interesting alternative is the duel mode career, which returns from the first game almost exactly the same (some sound cues have been improved, but that's about it). Here, you play through the songs against an invisible opponent (or a real one, through the game's wireless multiplayer mode), throwing power-ups at them and fending off their attacks likewise. Hyper-speed, screen-swaps, amp overloads and bombs all add an extra level of challenge to spice up the songs, although some will find blowing on the mic to extinguish fires and signing your name for fans a bit off-putting after a while. This is still more fun than anything Neversoft added to the series, mind you.

It's all just a bit of fun, ultimately. This isn't an accurate music sim, by any stretch, as evidenced by the occasional hammer-on that goes from one button to the same one, and the final song's unrealistic-but-climactic four-button chord shred-fest that's thrown in just for the heck of it. Then there's the selection of guitars that only consist of look-a-likes and abstract designs, and there are some more funny quotes and comments after your gigs.

The only other issue here is value for money. We'd recommend the first On Tour as a better starting point and a slightly better game overall, which relegates this to a worthwhile expansion if you can find it cheap enough.

Rating: 6 / 10

Words by Daniel James