It's pretty easy to look at screenshots or cheesy game trailers for Guitar Hero: On Tour and think there's no way the proven Guitar Hero formula could work on a handheld. There's no guitar, for starters. How are you going to hammer frets or pick at a strum bar that doesn't exist? The Nintendo DS isn't exactly an audio powerhouse, either, so there's a question of whether or not the thing is capable of delivering quality tunes to rock out to.

You can throw all of that talk out the window. Guitar Hero: On Tour is shaping up to be a surprisingly good entry in the Guitar Hero series, handheld or not. Based on what I played, it appears that what made the console Guitar Hero games so much fun hasn't been sacrificed in the portable version. In fact, there are a few reasons why On Tour may turn out to be more fun than parts of the console Hero games.

On Tour has the same familiar layout as the other Guitar Hero games. The note highway, colored notes, star power note sequences, hammer-on and pull-off notes, and other basics are all in there. The big gameplay difference is the absence of the orange fifth fret, a button which many beginning players dread. While getting rid of it may offer the appearance that the game brings a step down in top-end difficulty, I can say with confidence that the expert level of difficulty will be a good challenge for GH pros. I found that I hit a wall after only three or four of the first batch of songs, so I can't imagine it getting any easier after that.

The DS touch screen replaces the strum bar that you're used to seeing on the full-size plastic guitar controllers. To play notes, you need to swipe the included guitar pick stylus across the touch screen. Any kind of swipe will do, be they back and forth or all in the same direction. The game can detect "tapping" swipes where you lift the pick up after every note, or "scratching" swipes in which the stylus pick never loses contact with the screen. There was never a point during my extensive time with On Tour when any of my strumming/picking motions were not detected by the game, which is very impressive considering I did almost all of my play on the note-intensive expert difficulty. The swipes can be performed (almost) anywhere on the touch screen, and not just across the neck of the virtual guitar in the background.

The action of playing notes is physically more of a strumming motion than any other guitar games have to offer. It really feels like you're in control of every string plunk because your hand isn't locked into place. The console guitar controllers have a fixed strum bar that makes it easier to "bounce" your hand up and down when playing multiple notes in quick succession. Playing a lot of notes in a row with the pick stylus across the touch screen feels much more satisfying when you pull it off successfully. It really feels like you're scraping at strings instead of just flipping a lever up and down a few times. There's no annoying click noise, either!

The only real downside to touch screen strumming is that it's possible to accidentally activate star power. The star power meter is located on the left side of the touch screen and can be activated by touching it after it's ready to be deployed. I noticed that when my strumming motions began to drift toward the upper portion the touch screen, I sometimes wandered over to the star power meter area and activated it unknowingly. This isn't too bad of a problem if you can catch yourself and keep the pick low on the touch screen, but it might come up if you're not paying attention. Then again, if you're picking hard and fast, there may not be time to stop, tap the star power area, and get back on it without missing some notes. Maybe the design was intentional? Regardless, shouting into the microphone will also activate star power, as long as you shout loud enough.

The DS version of Guitar Hero has even got fully polygonal guitar heroes.

I had the most trouble getting a handle on the guitar grip, which turns your Nintendo DS into a mini guitar. The tricky part of using it is getting your hand into a position that makes the device easy to hold and also still gives you free access to the four fret buttons. It took me a while to adjust the Velcro strap around my hand—I even tried holding it without the aid of the strap, with moderate success—until I found a configuration I was most comfortable with. Once I solved the grip, I could easily put one finger on each fret button (real pros use the pinky finger!) and quickly change chords, do hammer-ons, and rock out just like I've been doing since the first game in the series was released.

Far and away, the best part I've seen so far in Guitar Hero: On Tour is the multiplayer. The usual face-off, pro face-off, and co-op modes are included, of course, except this time around it's over local wireless play between two DS systems. The best mode, however, is the new guitar duel mode. Structurally, it's the same as battle mode in Guitar Hero III, with spiked notes and pretty much the same power-ups and attacks. However, the unique features of the DS, along with some balancing tweaks to make things more fair, are what could make On Tour top the charts.

Stringing together a sequence of spiked notes will earn you a power-up, of which a maximum of three can be stored. These can be activated at any time, in any order, by tapping the power-up icon on the touch screen. The biggest complaint to come out of Guitar Hero III's battle mode is that someone can activate an attack against someone else trying to hit the spiked notes, making it near impossible to send attacks back the other way. To remedy that, a shield power-up has been added, making it possible to defend against attacks and have a chance to get your own attacks in. I noticed that when I fell behind during a duel, I tended to get more shield power-ups than anything else, which helped me get back into the fight.

The attacks that pop up during duels are very well thought out. The screen swap attack will disorient you twice: once when the notes flip to the other screen (you still need to strum on the touch screen when this happens), and again when they flip back. When your guitar catches on fire, blowing it out with the DS microphone is actually fun to do, which is odd considering how many other games use the mechanic but do a poor job of keeping it entertaining. The one that will really get you is the "sign my fish" attack, which will not only require you to put down on autograph on it before you can resume strumming, but will also have you on the floor laughing at the thought that a deranged fan thought it a good idea to bring a fish, of all things, for you to sign during a guitar battle. In the event you don't think you'll have a friend with a copy of the game around to experience this, On Tour includes a single player duel career on top of the standard career mode.

Never sign for anything that doesn't look fresh.

The Guitar Hero experience, most will say, is only as good as the quality of the music. This presents an obvious challenge for the Nintendo DS hardware, which doesn't have the benefit of a decent pair of speakers, let alone surround sound. If you're picky about listening to MP3s encoded at 192kbps instead of 128kbps, chances are you're going to want to be extremely critical of the audio quality in On Tour. Indeed, the hardware sometimes struggles to output clean sound when activating star power, which will usually produce a very annoying audio blow-out.

But all things considered, developer Vicarious Visions has managed to squeeze master tracks of several songs into Guitar Hero: On Tour with quality that is surprisingly good for a DS game. It definitely sounds like DS audio, but all the songs are unmistakably recognizable. If you plug in a pair of headphones (highly recommended), you'll even be able to hear some of the subtleties of the music. I was easily able to fall into the rhythm of the music and sing along in my head just like I do with my big, expensive stereo system at home. It's a bit difficult to turn the volume "up to 11" without getting some distortion, but the audio was still technically impressive no matter how you slice it. (For a list of confirmed Guitar Hero: On Tour songs, read our new preview.)

Based on what I played of Guitar Hero: On Tour, it looks like it's going to be more than worthy of carrying the Guitar Hero name. Nintendo thinks so too, apparently, since it's going to be offering a Guitar Hero: On Tour Nintendo DS bundle—the first time it has ever packed in a third-party game with its hardware. That's a pretty big vote of confidence for something that a lot of people assumed was just going to be a cash-in attempt.