Band Hero [DS]

Also making the jump from Guitar Hero to Band Hero is Mii Freestyle. This is where you and your friends can turn on your instruments and just jam. There are suggested notes that scroll by, but you're free to tap out whatever you want. If you hook up the DS for this portion of play, you can control what you're seeing on the TV screen like you're directing a music video. There are camera angles, lights, and more to tweak, but it's pretty much the same system you saw in Guitar Hero 5.

The Wii didn't get all the limelight while Activision was in the office and rocking out; I also got to play a tiny bit of Band Hero on the DS. Now, this is the Band Hero that you need the DS cart to play, and if you haven't seen the crazy drum skin that's going to be packed in with this game, check this thing out. Band Hero is coming with the Guitar Hero DS peripheral, but it's also coming with a rubber skin you'll put over your DS to turn the face buttons into four drum pads.

I kid you not.

The skin is designed for DS Lites only, and it actually feels pretty good. Just like every music game before it, the notes descend on the screen and you tap out the beat as they cross a line – the only difference this time is that you're tapping it out on a palm-sized drum set. Plus, the touch screen controls have been tweaked to be used by your fingers because the stylus will be entombed; you can scroll around the game's track list with simple finger brushes.

Vicarious Visions also went in and touched up the guitar controls so that you can tap the strings or strum them depending on how you're feeling at the moment.

Although the drum skin is crazy, what's effing nuts is that this game also supports singing. That's right, you can sing into your DS' microphone and karaoke wherever the heck you might be. Being the office's resident SingStar, this was the biggest news of the demo for me. I teamed up with a full band – get four systems and games together and you can have a band comprised of whatever combination of instruments you want – and began crooning Blink-182's "First Date" into my DS. Pitch and timing bars popped up on the top screen of the DS and I had to fill them with my voice for points.

It's been a long time since I sang in front of people where I wasn't singing into a microphone and hearing my voice through a set of speakers. Here, it's just your vocals in a roomful of your friends. It was weird, but it was definitely fun and the scoring system seemed to be working fine.

If you have the Wii version of Band Hero, you'll be able to connect your DS version of Band Hero and download 50 exclusive Fan Request challenges. These are tasks challenging you to use Star Power in a certain way or dodge bomb notes or so on. Complete them all and you'll unlock new stuff for your created rockers as well as the ability to play at the DS rockers on the Wii.

I liked Band Hero enough when I previewed it on the PS3/360 last week, but I really had a blast with the Wii version yesterday. The song list is solid, but the Roadie Battle and the ability to organize your setlist on the DS while people are playing on the Wii are pretty awesome features. While I only got a taste of the DS version of Band Hero, it seemed interesting. The visuals seemed a little blocky – these were big vocal bars to fill – but the idea of having a portable foursome is intriguing.

We don't have much longer to wait for Band Hero, so keep checking IGN for more information as we lead up to the review.

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