Guitar Hero DS Revealed!

More than a year ago Activision stated that they would be bringing their Guitar Hero Franchise to the Nintendo DS. After hearing little in the past year and seeing Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock make its way to home consoles DS gamers must have began to wonder if they were every going to get the chance to rock out. Activision have announced through IGN that they will finally be bringing out the portable version of the popular series later this year.

The DS version is named Guitar Hero: On Tour as speculated. The DS version will feature the same rhythm based gameplay as its console counterparts and will feature its own new Guitar Grip accessory, allowing gamers to play finger chords in a similar way to the console version.

The Guitar Grip will plug into the GBA slot (slot 2) and will allow players to put their hand through a strap for security as they hold the DS on its side like a book similar to Brain Training. The accessory will feature a storage area for the included pick stylus which will be used to strum the guitar stings via the touch screen. As the notes move down the screen players strum the guitar while holding down the matching fret, gameplay which veterans of the series will be all too familiar with.

Karthik Bala, CEO of Vicarious Visions the games developer talks about the DS version of the popular rhythm game. "We began prototyping ideas for Guitar Hero on DS in early 2007. We quite frankly didn't know whether it would be possible to bring the core essence of the franchise to handheld and have it actually work. It was 20-something gameplay prototypes that were built, all trying different mechanics and uses of the hardware. Some were pretty cool, others were total disasters!”

"At some point, we hit upon the idea of creating a peripheral that would have the fret buttons plugging into the GBA slot of the DS," he recalled. "We ripped apart an old GBA cartridge and did some electronics work on it to rig up a prototype device. As awkward and crude as that prototype was, that's when we knew we were onto something. We figured that attaching a full-size guitar or even a mini-guitar would be too awkward to play on the road, hence the design of the more compact Guitar Grip, which gives you the tactile sense of the fret buttons, with the touch screen depicting the strings of the guitar."

Activision is yet to release many more details such as the official song list, but it is known that the game will feature a single player career mode similar to that found in the console versions. Guitar Hero: On Tour will also feature co-op multiplayer and 2 player head to head battles.

Check out the teaser trailer!