In its race to continue churning out Guitar Hero games at as high a rate as possible, nothing that Activision has done has been sillier than Band Hero for Nintendo DS.
After three Guitar Hero On Tour games for the DS in one year, the fourth arrives today, bearing the branding of Activision's new family-friendly E-rated version of its music game. True to the name, Band Hero lets you play not just guitar but drums and vocals.
How? Well, Band Hero ships not only with the guitar grip controller but a rubber sleeve that fits over the DS Lite, overlaying the unit's face buttons with four soft rubbery drum pads that you press with your thumbs.
In a word: useless. Pushing on rubber pads isn't any different than pushing buttons, and doesn't make the game any easier, any more fun, or any more realistic.
You can also choose to sing into the system's microphone, if you want everyone else on the bus to scoot awkwardly away from you.
Guitar works just like it does in the three previous versions: The guitar grip plugs into the Game Boy Advance slot of the DS Lite hardware, and you grip the system in a way that makes your wrist hurt, and strum the screen with a pick-shaped stylus while holding down the fret buttons with your fingers.
In theory, the game's multiplayer mode would allow four people to get together and form a "full band," playing every individual part. I say "in theory" because if this actually spontaneously happened in real life outside the context of someone needing to write a game review, my head would probably explode.
Activision maintained during the run-up to the game's release that Band Hero would not work with the Nintendo DSi. This is actually untrue. While the guitar grip has nowhere to go because the DSi doesn't have a Game Boy Advance slot, you can play drums and vocals on the DSi. The drum slipcover doesn't fit over the DSi's case, but I don't count that as one in the loss column.
I like music games as much as or significantly more than the next person, but I felt no sense of enjoyment while playing any of Band Hero's modes. Just awkwardness. And there wasn't even anyone around to look at me.
Photo: Chris Kohler/Wired.com
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