Insanely Awe-dical

Guitar Hero Comes to DS

Harmonix is the brilliant company that created music games like Frequency, Amplitude, and the ever-popular Guitar Hero. Activision bought out the Guitar Hero franchise after GH2:80s came out, and it's clear they're moving the franchise to a new level. GH3 was brilliantly done, and of course, GH:Aerosmith is coming out later in the summer. But before that comes out, is this oddity for the DS.

Hit the link above and check out the promotional video - there is a pair of kids jamming to their hand-attached DS machines, scraping that pick-designed stylus (or stylus-designed pick - you choose!) across the touch screen mimicing the actual strumming of a guitar.

I will give Activision this - you milk this franchise for all it's got. Most importantly, kudos to the developers, who didn't just map the buttons to colored frets and made players strum - you actually used the GBA slot of the DS to accept input! And not only accept input, but totally different input leaving the face & shoulder buttons untouched! Amazingly well done, and actually brilliant.

I will also say that having a hand strap and a place to keep the stylus is also great design. however, I believe I will be uncomfortable fretting and strumming so close to each other. I'm glad there are only 4 buttons because sliding and managing 5 buttons while strapped into the hand strap will be a problem.

I'm sort of torn. They got the concept right though - guitar gaming on the go, with no periphs, and a semi-realistic hand fretting position. It really sounds interesting.