E308: DS Fanboy rocks out to Rock Revolution DS

Oh, poor Konami. You're a little too late to your own party. Actually, more like way too late. With the company finally trying to grab a slice of the delicious music game pie, they're not only pushing Rock Revolution on home consoles, but also on the DS.

After having some play time with the title at E3, I feel safe in saying that the handheld game is pretty much going to be the best of the bunch.

That's isn't really saying much, though.

After playing the home version of the game (it was pretty boring), I then moved over to the DS demo. There were two stations set up: one for vocals, and one for playing instruments. I couldn't get through the vocal demo, what with there still being a lot of noise despite E3's diminished status this year. But, the instrument-based demo was easy to pick up and play.

First up was drums. Like all the other instruments in the game, it utilizes the stylus and touch-screen. Here, you watch scrolling notes on the top screen and tap the corresponding drum on the bottom. It was pretty easy to get into and excel at.

Next up, I rocked both the bass and guitar. Here, strings are displayed on the bottom screen and I had to strum up or down on each screen according to an arrow that would show up. Again, it seemed fairly easy to me, but the problem was that none of this really came off as fun.

Now, don't get me wrong: I like Rock Band and Guitar Hero. Those titles are good fun. But, I've always felt that these types of games are best on consoles and shouldn't really be on a portable console. Of course, with over 300,000 people picking up Guitar Hero: On Tour in its first week, what do I know? Maybe the lack of a required peripheral will make this a more appealing package. To me, though, I just didn't think it was all that fun.