Guitar Hero: On Tour

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Guitar Hero: On Tour
Developer(s)	Vicarious Visions
Publisher(s)	Activision
Series	Guitar Hero: On Tour
Platform(s)	Nintendo DS
Release date	June 22, 2008
Genre(s)	Music Rhythm
Mode(s)	Single-player Local multiplayer
Media	Nintendo DS Game Card
Input method(s)	Guitar Grip (required) Touchscreen (navigate, strum) Microphone (activate powers)

Guitar Hero: On Tour is the game for the Nintendo DS developed by Vicarious Visions with assistances from Nintendo and RedOctane and published by Activision on June 22, 2008. The game comes with a four-button fretboard attachment called Guitar Grip which plugs into a Nintendo DS or Nintendo DS Lite's Game Boy Advance slot.

This game also had its own Nintendo DS bundle upon launch called the Special Edition Guitar Hero Metallic Silver Black DS bundle, which included a metallic silver-colored Guitar Hero-themed Nintendo DS (black on the inside), Guitar Hero: On Tour, a Guitar Grip and pick stylus, a regular Nintendo DS stylus, and a Nintendo DS charger.

Guitar Hero: On Tour was also later bundled with its sequel Guitar Hero On Tour: Decades after Decades was released.

Gameplay

The Guitar Grip for the game.

The gameplay in On Tour was designed to be similar to the home console games while still maintaining the portability of the Nintendo DS. The new Guitar Grip peripheral replaces the guitar controller of the home games with an adapter for older DS systems; it attaches to the DS's GBA slot and features four fret buttons. It's primarily designed to be plugged into a Nintendo DS Lite, but the bundle also included an extension to fit in a regular Nintendo DS.

How Guitar Hero: On Tour games are played on a Nintendo DS.

With that said, Guitar Hero: On Tour and its sequel are designed to be play 90 degrees on the Nintendo DS side. Defaulting to right-handed users, the player turns their Nintendo DS 90 degrees right and slips their left hand through the Velcro strap underneath the grip and their four fingers align with the four colored fret buttons on the Grip. For left-handed users, Lefty Flip can be toggled in the Options menu which not only flips the highway but also rotates the screen 180 degrees for left-handed users to slide their right hand through the Velcro strap and play the game on its other side.

Top screen (left image) with highway and stage, bottom touch screen (right image) with guitar, whammy bar, and user interface.

There are four rows of notes on the highway. In order to strum notes, the player can use their finger, a stylus, or the special pick-shaped stylus is included with the game to strum the notes on the touch screen.

Star Power can be gathered by completing Star Power phrases and whammying long notes in Star Power phrases, which can be done by either moving the whammy bar or continually strumming the long note. After reaching at least 50% energy in the Star Power meter, Star Power can be activated either by blowing or speaking into the DS's microphone, pressing one of the system's face buttons, or tapping the Star Power meter, which doubles the multiplier for a short period of time.

A Guitar Duel in Guitar Hero: On Tour.

The game also features Guitar Duels similar to Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock's Battle Mode with some in career mode.

Characters

Returning characters are Pandora, Axel Steel, Judy Nails and Johnny Napalm along with two unique characters made specifically for Guitar Hero: On Tour, Gunner Jaxon and Memphis Rose. The game also features a redone version of the band you play seen in previous games. The Female Singer from previous games has been replaced by a different one, along with a new drummer, and The Singer replaces The Bassist.

Soundtrack

Main article: Setlist in Guitar Hero: On Tour

The game features 26 songs, 21 songs exclusive or was introduced in this game, and five from Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. The Non-English-speaking European release of the game has 5 songs replaced with international songs in its setlist.

Venues

The game features five venues plus the bonus tier.

1. Subway
2. Rooftop
3. Parade
4. Greek Arena
5. Battleship

Gallery

Guitar Hero: On Tour (USA) with Guitar Grip bundled.

Special Edition Guitar Hero Metallic Silver Black DS (USA)

Videos

Official trailer

Trivia

• This is the first game in the Guitar Hero series not to be released for the PlayStation 2.
• Hit Me With Your Best Shot and Pride and Joy were cover versions in Guitar Hero III but are now Master Tracks.
• In "Guitar Duel" mode, one of the autograph books that you have to sign has Casey Lynch's and Lars Ümlaüt's names on it.
• The On Tour website calls Gunner Jaxon and Memphis Rose Gunner Jackson and Memphis Belle respectively. The reason is because that they could only fit "Gunner Jaxon" and "Memphis Rose" into the character name slot.
• There have been rumors about having 5 bonus songs for the game: "I am Not Your Gameboy" by Freezepop, "Welcome to the Jungle" by Guns N' Roses, "Crazy Train" by Ozzy Osbourne, "Master of Puppets" by Metallica and "Dani California" by Red Hot Chili Peppers. Only "I am Not Your Gameboy" was confirmed to be in the game.

• The message that appears when you try to play the game without the Guitar Grip.
• The message that appears when you remove the Guitar Grip while playing the game.

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• This game is not compatible with the Nintendo DSi, or any other later Nintendo consoles due to the lack of a GBA slot to attach the Guitar Grip to. However, a cheating device such Action Replay or an unofficial game patch can bypass and disable the Guitar Grip checks and change controls.
  • Alternatively with hardware engineering skills, a modified guitar controller could possibly be used on an unmodified Nintendo DS or DS Lite, or any modified Nintendo DSi or 3DS models.
• Guitar Hero On Tour: Decades is able to "share songs" with Guitar Hero: On Tour using a wireless connection. In other words, if one person had Guitar Hero: On Tour and another had Guitar Hero On Tour: Decades, both players would be able to "share" and play the 26 songs on Guitar Hero: On Tour and 28 songs on Guitar Hero On Tour: Decades, adding up to a total of 54 songs. But once the connection is interrupted or stopped, one player cannot play another game's setlist until the connection is restored or restarted.
• The user interface designer of the game, Anton Struyk, previously worked on a Guitar Hero-inspired video game for PC called Freetar (also known as Freetar Game and formerly known as Freetar Hero) along with a note chart editor for it called Freetar Editor, both developed in Java. Freetar and its editor were discontinued when Struyk joined Vicarious Visions.