Never in your wildest dreams would you have imagined that the Guitar Hero franchise would go to a handheld system…ever. This alone is absolutely revolutionary!

Rock icons don’t play by the rules. They throw tellies out of windows, bite the heads off bats and smash up the instruments - that makes them what they are. One instrument you won’t want to smash up, no matter how raw you are, is Guitar Hero: On Tour’s “Guitar Grip.” It’s a beautifully designed piece of kit that fits in the palm of your hand (literally) and is very user friendly, but not in the least bit bulky.

The game plays identically to the console version except that there is one fret button missing, yes…the orange fret button, but those who are masters – do not worry, those four buttons can be a pain (obsessive finger cramps included, free of charge). Not just have they gone the whole nine yards with this accessory, but it even comes with a custom plectrum style stylus! Marvelous!

You hold the DS vertically so that the screen appears left to right (instead of top to bottom) and the top (now left screen, seeing that you’re right handed…which you can lefty flip by the way) has the highway of notes streaming down the screen towards you. As per usual you press the correct coloured button and on the right (or bottom) screen you strum away, gently sliding your plectrum from left to right. At first I found it a bit confusing, but after about three songs I was really going for it! It works a charm and much better than what I pre-envisioned it would be.

Fortunately, there are quite a few songs, 31 to be exact, on this handheld version. However, the quality of the songs dropped a tad bit as you can only squeeze that many songs on a DS card at a good bit rate. When playing the songs through your stereo system at home it does come out a bit croaky, but stick on a pair of headphones and things sound really good. In fact, if you do not have a set of headphones at hand while playing this you ain’t playing it right.

Now, if you put two and two together you would have realised that Vicarious Visions, so far, used every bit they could when it comes to the functionalities on the DS – they’re not done yet! We also have Star Power, activated by blowing on your mic…or screaming some abusive line at the top of your lungs. “The DS that could,” comes to my mind. Mind blowing! It makes you realise what kind of potential this hardware still has and that developers are only now starting to tap into the potential Nintendo originally intended for this “gadget.”

Herewith your track list:

“All Star” - Smash Mouth
“All the Small Things” - Blink-182
“Anna Molly” – Incubus
“Are You Gonna Be My Girl” – Jet
“Avalancha” - Heroes del Silencio
“Black Magic Woman” – Santana
“Breed” – Nirvana
“Ça Me Vexe” - Mademoiselle K
“China Grove” - The Doobie Brothers
“Do What You Want” - OK Go
“Heaven” - Los Lonely Boys
“Helicopter” - Bloc Party
“Hit Me with Your Best Shot” - Pat Benatar
“I Don’t Wanna Stop” - Ozzy Osbourne
“I Am Not Your Gameboy” – Freezepop
“I Know a Little” - Lynyrd Skynyrd
“Jessie’s Girl” - Rick Springfield
“Jet Airliner” - Steve Miller Band
“Knock Me Down” - Red Hot Chili Peppers
“La Grange” - ZZ Top
“Monster” – Beatsteaks
“Monsoon” - Tokio Hotel
“Pride and Joy” - Stevie Ray Vaughan
“Rock and Roll All Nite” – Kiss
“Rock the Night” – Europe
“Spiderwebs” - No Doubt
“Stray Cat Strut” - Stray Cats
“This Love” - Maroon 5
“We’re Not Gonna Take It” - Twisted Sister
“What I Want” - Daughtry featuring Slash
“Youth Gone Wild” - Skid Row

Lastly there is one small little trick this game has up its sleeve: “Co-op Wi-Fi multiplayer.” They’ve squeezed so much on it already, but over and above it all they’ve added an option to play along with a mate.

The only downside I could think of was that one would not be able to download any new songs and would have to wait for new versions of this handheld franchise to be released. Graphically this game does the job, but I’m not gonna discuss a game that has very little to do with that category.

Who knows, you might even catch your Gran rocking out instead of training her brain! Scary, eh?

Do yourself a favour and pick this up.

Pros: Portable Guitar Hero; awesome accessory; touch screen is very precise.

Cons: When you’ve played the songs there are no extra downloads.

Purchase: