Guitar Hero: On Tour for the DS – screenshots, video, Guitar Grip

Curious as to what Guitar Hero‘s trip to the Nintendo DS would be like? We’ve got screenshots, a video, and pictures of Guitar Hero DS‘ controller, the Guitar Grip. Interested? Head over to the full article for more info and goodies from Activision and Vicarious Visions’ Guitar Hero: On Tour.

Dreaming of playing your Guitar Hero on the road? Well, thy wish is Activision and Vicarious Visions’ command. Yes, we’re talking about the Nintendo DS version of the rhythm sim. You’ll be glad to know that we finally have something concrete about it, including a name: Guitar Hero: On Tour.

According to IGN, Guitar Hero: On Tour will be sporting the same basic gameplay where notes scroll on the screen and you press a fret and strum to rack up points. And like we reported last September, the devs (working with Red Octane) designed a special controller specifically for the DS. Dubbed the Guitar Grip, the controller will be plugging into the GBA slot and will have four frets, a strap for easy gripping, plus a stylus shaped like a pick that slots into the controller.

Basically, players press on the frets while strumming on the touch screen. According to Karthik Bala, CEO of Vicarious Visions, they nearly tore at their hair designing the Guitar Grip:

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!

In the end, Bala recounted that they ended up tearing apart an old GBA cartridge and pimped it out with some electronics. And voila! They got the Guitar Grip.

What else will Guitar Hero: On Tour bring to the rhythm games’ table? The game will have a Career Mode where you can progress through the game and unlock venues and bling for your character, six characters to choose from (two of which are exclusive to On Tour), plus 20 songs from different bands including Nirvana, No Doubt, and OK Go. On Tour will also get two Multiplayer Modes, competitive and co-operative, over Wi-Fi. Competitive multiplayer mode will have a battle mode similar to Guitar Hero III (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, PC) where you’ll send your opponent some form of disctraction) and will also make use of microphone to blow out fire on the stage and touchscreen to sign autographs.

According to IGN’s report, Guitar Hero: On Tour will be coming to the shelves this summer and will be tagged with an E10 ESRB rating. That’s all we have for now, but we’ll keep you posted when more news crops up.