Take this one out to the wood shred.
6/27/2008 6:13 PM | 1 Comments | Page 1 of 2
What's Hot: Well, it is Guitar Hero. And it is portable. So that's something, I guess; Pick-shaped stylus is cool. I guess; Variety of venues to play in, including a rooftop and a subway platform.
What's Not: That Smash Mouth track; Hand-cramping, and that's a guarantee; That Smash Mouth track. Oh, mentioned that one already? Trust me, it's worth a second mention.
Hundreds of years in the future, once the world has been destroyed and after mankind is completely vaporized, aliens will land their spaceships on our scorched, drifting continents, sift through the landfills, and discover many thousands of copies of
Guitar Hero: On Tour.
And those aliens will wonder, "
Could this be what ruined their once-great civilization?"
Only it will sound like "
Bleep bloop bleep bleep bloop bleep," because we will not be able to understand what they are saying in their alien tongue.
Time for an old-fashioned Crispy Gamer Sing-along! All together now...
Like a red sky in the morning to sailors or an Arby's "Grand Opening" in your neighborhood,
Guitar Hero: On Tour feels like an omen, a sign of potentially more terrible things to come. What's next? A Guitar Hero cell phone game? (Editor's note:
It already exists.)
For a fee of $50, you not only get the
Guitar Hero: On Tour game cartridge, but you also get a piece of plastic that plugs into the Game Boy cartridge slot on your Nintendo DS.
Turn your DS sideways like a book, slip your hand into the adjustable wrist strap on the piece of plastic, line up your fingers with the green, red, yellow and blue buttons (the orange button, the bane of all casual GH fans, isn't used in the DS version), then turn on the power.
The first thing you'll see on-screen is a warning. It says, "TAKE FREQUENT BREAKS TO AVOID ANY DISCOMFORT OR HAND CRAMPING." This warning appears next to a clock graphic with what appears to be 15 minutes blocked out. What it should say here is: "TAKE THIS GAME BACK TO THE STORE TO AVOID ANY DISCOMFORT OR HAND CRAMPING."
"This game looks fun!/But it's not!"
The first sign that things have gone south here is the game's set list. A lousy set list is the kiss of death for any GH game, and
On Tour features so many unsurprising tracks that it adds up to being more than a kiss of death; heck, it's practically a make-out session of death.
What you get on the set list are series chestnuts like Pat Benatar's "Hit Me With Your Best Shot," Carlos Santana's "Black Magic Woman" and a tepid cover of Kiss' "I Want to Rock and Roll All Night (and Party Everyday)." (Yes, it's the same cover that appears on
Guitar Hero II.)
If these tracks sound stale, that's because they are. Any true fan of the series can practically play these tracks in his or her sleep by now. Indeed, rather than including anything surprising or off-the-wall, Vicarious Visions dug through the GH recycling bin. Beyond that, I should fry the game merely for including that horrid Smash Mouth song. You know the one.
Like a Las Vegas Elvis impersonator,
Guitar Hero: On Tour does little more than lie its bloated self down on the stage, mumble half-forgotten lyrics into the microphone, and blow the occasional fart, leaving the people who paid hard-earned money for this bullshit only able to reminisce about the series' former glory.
