You gotta hand it to Activision, it really seems committed to bringing its wildly popular Guitar Hero franchise to every platform imaginable. After, what, maybe a good year of speculation and fake peripheral mock-ups, Activision has officially announced (IE, emailed me a press release) that it'll be bringing Guitar Hero: On Tour to the Nintendo DS this summer.
In development at Vicarious Visions, the game promises songs by Nirvana, OK Go, and No Doubt, though here's to hoping it's not the same Nirvana, OK Go, and No Doubt songs we've already played in Guitar Hero and/or Rock Band. There will be local co-op play, as well as a guitar duel mode that will feature some DS-specific attacks. The examples given include using the microphone to extinguish malfunctioning pyrotechnics and using the stylus to autograph a fan's t-shirt in the middle of the set. I know a lot of people weren't fans of the whole power-up concept in Guitar Hero III, but I dunno, these actually sound pretty clever.
There will be six playable characters, two of which will be brand-new for On Tour, as well as five unlockable new venues, but the real pearl in this story is that the game will come packed-in with the Guitar Hero Grip. I'm definitely eager to try this crazy contraption out for myself, though at first glance it looks kind of awkward to hold, and I'm pretty sure that holding a DS really close to my face and scribbling on the screen in a rhythmic fashion won't evoke the same rock-star fantasies provided by past entries. On the upside, it looks like lefties should be able to just flip the DS over and rock out.
Can Guitar Hero: The Ride at Six Flags be too far behind? The whole thing kind of just makes me think of Coupon: The Movie.