Normally, I avoid video game posts because I doubt most of my audience would be able to understand me if I did. I think I can pull this one off.
About a month or two ago Guitar Hero: On Tour came out. The basic idea was to put Guitar Hero on a portable gaming device, specifically the Nintendo DS. Before I say anything I will give props for the fact that the creators were able to turn a metal box slightly larger than your palm into a playable guitar. Now that I got that out of the way, let's get onto the more interesting stuff, where it went wrong.
First, a bit of background info on the DS. About a year after the DS came out, Nintendo released the DS lite, an upgraded version of the DS that was smaller, had a brighter backlight, and came in pink. This isn't the first time Nintendo released an upgraded version of one of their handheld consoles. Back in the days of the Game Boy Advanced, the GBA SP came out, which was smaller, introduced the idea of a backlight, and came in purple. Back then, I did buy a GBA SP, but mostly because my GBA had to be held together with scotch tape. Right now my DS is working just fine, (though I have suspicions about the battery life slowly dying.) So, I have not bothered to purchase a DS lite.
One last thing about the DS lite is that the backwards compatibility slot for GBA games is slightly shorter than the DS. Normally, the only problem is that the GBA game annoyingly sticks out of the DS lite, but you can still play it fine.
Unless the makeshift guitar on a new game utilizes this slot.
Like any business, Nintendo holds their latest products in higher light, so any advertising has a DS lite in it instead of a regular DS. It's understandable, but can cause problems. Like in Guitar Hero. When I opened up my game and was just ready to play it I noticed that the guitar part that slides in the backwards compatibility slot would keep falling out. Desperately trying to get my new game to work, I took apart the guitar part, thinking that taking off the outer plastic case would make it small enough to fit. (It didn't.) I was about to disassemble my DS when my mom looked on the internet and found some guy on a forum with the same problem. Turns out that inside the box was an innocent looking plastic piece which is actually an extension to the guitar so it fits all the way in an old DS.
Sad thing was that no where on the box or instructions did it actually say this.
And for the game itself: I'm starting to wonder what flies as a rock song nowadays. There are only 25 tracks. (~60 less than the next one coming later this month.) The only songs I recognized were on a previous Guitar Hero, and there were also songs like All Star, Jessie's Girl, and This Love... which aren't exactly what you'd call rock songs. I did end up liking a few songs: Helicopter by I-don't-know, Youth Gone Wild by I-don't-remember and some song by Ozzy Osbourne.
As a final note, after noticing all the scratch marks, the bulky size, the pixel that always shines red... I was thinking about actually getting a DS lite. Although maybe I should wait, because Nintendo just released info on a NEW upgrade to the DS. (I think it's called the DSi) Apparently it has enhanced WiFi capabilities and an SD slot. And instead of shortening the backwards compatibility slot even more, it just got rid of it entirely. That'll make Guitar Hero difficult.
Hi,
The basic premise of transmedia planning is that rather than using different media channels to communicate the same idea, you can use each channel to communicate different things. Everything is still tied together by the same brand strategy or narrative, but each channel does what it does best, rather than bending to fit an idea that's not really built with any particular channel in mind. Each channel is strong and self-contained enough to live on its own, but can then be pulled together into a greater brand narrative.
Posted by: r4 software | July 03, 2009 at 02:55 AM
Hi,
Nice article..... whenever i will get free time i will play guitar......
Posted by: r4 software | July 03, 2009 at 02:58 AM