Band Hero

Band Hero works well enough on the DS. The core gameplay is good, and the song list is diverse enough that you can play this for a good amount of time before becoming bored.

In the awkward world of the "band" games on DS, Band Hero suffers from the very disappointing absence of a career mode and the limited compatibility with the DS consoles. Overall, a competent but forgettable game.

While Band Hero isn't perfect, it does offer more than just painful, hand-cramping guitar mechanics. This time around you can drum and sing, two modes that prove to be a lot of fun on the go.

In the end, I guess I’ll just say that if you’re really desperate to take your music games everywhere with you, the setlist turns your crank, and you find the Guitar Grip and Drum Overlay comfortable, then add 15 points to my score because Band Hero isn’t a terrible option. If you don’t require portability, however, I’d stick with the console versions.

Overall, Band Hero on the DS is a step in the wrong direction for portable music games. They've tried to go big on the peripheral front, but in doing so they've excluded a huge chunk of gamers in a wide range of ages.

Even though Band Hero is still a strong musical performer, its problems keep it from stealing the show.

When it comes to bringing the full complement of instruments to the DS, Band Hero represents a very rocky start. If it weren't for the game's shortsighted and unintuitive peripherals, there might actually be something worthwhile here -- assuming you dig the soundtrack, anyhow.

The main Play mode and multiplayer are lots of fun, but there are no other modes - unless, of course, you count Fan Requests, but you can only access them by connecting to a copy of Band Hero Wii.