Guitar Hero: On Tour Decades

In short, it's not a bad selection. There are some proper rock classics in there and not too many fillers. It helps that all the songs are performed by the original artists, though not to the extent that you're able to ignore the rotten audio. Even with a pair of headphones, the sound quality is tinny enough to give you tinnitus. There's too much fuzz and distortion, particularly when it comes to "S" sounds, and too often you're reminded of angry wasps in a biscuit tin. The switches between the crowd jeering and cheering are distractingly abrupt, particularly on the harder difficulty levels.

You can't get too cross with the developer about all this, of course, as it's down to the technical limitations of the DS. But there's no getting away from the fact it affects how enjoyable the game is to play. Original performances are all very well, but it's hard to believe you're listening to the real Lynrd Skynrd anyway when they're "Zzshzinging zzshzongs about the zzshzouthland".

There is one neat feature worth mentioning - the option to share tracks between On Tour and Decades without having to swap cartridges in and out. So if you have one of the games and your friend has the other, you can both access all 54 songs instantly, in both co-operative and competitive modes. You'll each need a guitar grip peripheral though, of course.

Otherwise, there's little to report in the way of new features. The Career mode is back, and this time you can choose to play through the whole thing as a bass guitarist (which, as anyone who likes this sort of thing knows, is more tedious anyway). Once again you can take part in Guitar Duels, and they haven't even bothered to think up any new power-ups. There's still no online mode, rubbishly.

So really, Guitar Hero: On Tour Decades is just Guitar Hero: On Tour with different tracks. The gameplay's exactly the same. There's one extra mode and it's not very interesting. On top of this, none of the problems with the first game have been fixed. The guitar grip is still uncomfortable to use for many players. The strumming's not quite right. You'll still find the control system to be below par even if, like me, your hands resemble those of the protagonist in The Nightmare Before Christmas.