Band Hero Comes Complete with Drums

Activision has announced that it plans to include not only a peripheral simulating a guitar grip with its newest Band Hero game, but also a drum grip that will be covering the buttons of the DS Lite. The idea is for the fresh add-on to better simulate drum playing than the touch screen on the handheld while making sure that players do not suffer from stress in their fingers.

David Nathanielsz, who is the executive producer of Band Hero, told Kotaku that the add-on would offer a “nice push-back, bounce-back feel to them. They fit your thumbs well. If you start banging on that d-pad you'd get blisters and you won't have that feel.” Apparently, Activision is pretty worried about the possible injuries that players might be getting from excessive time spent with their games.

The drum grip, as the company calls it, is needed because Band Hero is set to allow four players to join up, via the Wi-Fi capabilities offered by the Nintendo DS, and play together as they would on a home console version of Guitar Hero. Activision and developer Vicarious Visions are aiming to deliver an experience of music simulation that can be enjoyed on the move.

The publisher is keen on exploiting the Guitar Hero franchise as much as it can, providing a wide variety of releases this fall, from Guitar Hero 5 to the new Van Halen-themed videogame. Band Hero will probably not be as big a success as either one of those above, as it's a little hard to get four people at the same time with Nintendo DS consoles around in order to enjoy the whole experience.

The bad news is that the Nintendo DSi is not compatible with the fresh Band Hero because the drum peripheral does not conform to the shape of the console. This could represent a problem on the long term for Activision as more and more players will switch to the newer handheld.