Scratch

My first time reviewing a game.

ANYWAYS, THE REVIEW:

Band Hero is the latest addition to the DS series of Guitar Hero, the best 3rd party selling DS games at present. Band Hero brings with it the ability to play as the whole band, using the familiar Guitar Grip for guitar and bass, a new drum skin over the face buttons for drums, and the DS’ microphone for vocals.
First off, the songlist. Band Hero contains 15 songs, plus 15 extra songs which differ depending on the region of the game.

Band Hero Songs:
“Call Me When You’re Sober” – Evanescence
“Everything About You” – Ugly Kid Joe
“Excuse Me Mr” – No Doubt
“First Date” – Blink 182
“Girlfriend” – Avril Lavigne
“I Predict A Riot” – Kaiser Chiefs
“Lets Get It Started” – Black Eyed Peas
“Manhattan” – Kings Of Leon
“Monkey Wrench” – Foo Fighters”
“No One Knows” – Queens Of The Stone Age
“So What” – Pink
“Spaceman” – The Killers
“Suddenly I See” – KT Tunstall
“Thnks Fr Th Mmrs” – Fall Out Boy
“Under My Thumb (Live)” – Rolling Stones

US Specific Songs:
“All You Need” – Sublime
“A-Punk” – Vampire Weekend
“Believe” – All American Rejects
“Boots Of Chinese Plastic” – The Pretenders
“Crazy Little Thing Called Love” – Queen
“Get Free” – The Vines
“Hungry Like The Wolf” – Duran Duran
“In Too Deep” – Sum 41
“Lump” – Presidents Of The United States Of America
“Our Truth” – Lacuna Coil
“The Great Escape” – Boys Like Girls
“Trouble Maker” – Weezer
“Two Princes” – Spin Doctors
“Wannabe In LA” – Eagles Of Death Metal
“You Better Pray” – Red Jumpsuit Apparatus

Europe Specific Songs:
“Club Foot” – Kasabian
“Fascination” – Alphabeat
“Feel Good Inc” – The Gorillaz
“Fly Away” – Lenny Kravitz
“Golden Touch” – Razorlight
“Grace Kelly” – MIKA
“Munich” – The Editors
“My Favourite Game” – The Cardigans
“She Will Be Loved” – Maroon 5
“Song 2” – Blur
“Take What You Take” – Lily Allen
“The Age Of The Understatement” – Shadow Puppets
“Tripping” – Robbie Williams
“Windows” – N.E.R.D.
“Yellow” – Coldplay

The Songlist in a game is completely subjective, so this is largely dependent on whether you like the bands involved or not. The US version encompasses a larger variety of genres, and sounds just like any other Guitar Hero title. The European version of Band Hero is the one which fulfils Activisions promise to design towards a more mainstream audience. In terms of difficulties in songs, the US version overall has a more challenging soundtrack and will be more enjoyable for veteran players. This doesn’t make the EU version automatically easy though.
Band Hero begins with all 30 songs unlocked from the beginning. While this may seem to ruin any sense of playing the game, 200 Achievement - style awards are included in the single player mode, completing tasks such as getting a 500 note streak or whammying every sustained note in a song to unlock goodies like extra titles, customisation options and venues.
Band Hero also includes the ability to fully customise your band to your specification. The creator is quite deep, and a nice inclusion to the game.
Functionally, Band Hero performs better than its previous On Tour counterparts, having improved strumming detection for the Guitar Grip, to accommodate different styles of play. Some people complain about the Grip giving them hand cramps. This has personally never happened to me, and seems to be largely dependent on playing styles.
The drums feel and work fine, with good detection and a good difficulty curve.
The vocals are a bit awkward, and the game may have trouble detecting your voice in a noisy place or if it isn’t close to your face, but still works well and is a step up from any other games the microphone is used in. Given the complexity of the task needed and the limitations of the DS’ hardware, it works admirably well.
Band Hero is only playable to its fullest extent on the DS Lite. The drum skin will not fit on to the DS Phat or DSi (Though players can simply use the buttons), and the latters lack of a GBA slot means the Guitar Grip won’t work with it either. This decision was made due to the higher proportion of DS Lites sold currently.