This fall, Band Hero DS will allow four DS systems to link up for guitar-bass-vocals-drum gameplay. And for optimal drumming, the game comes bundled with a âdrum gripâ revealed here.
The Band Hero DS drum grip is a piece of rubberized silicon that slips over a DS Lite. And is designed to better enable the feel of rapidly playing the drums than, say, tapping on drum icons on the DSâ touch screen.
The peripheral will come bundled with each copy of Band Hero DS, which will also include a single DS Lite-compatible guitar grip.
The drum grip, like the rest of Band Hero DS is not compatible with the DSi. In the case of the drum grip, it simply doesnât fit the system. I touched it briefly when it was wrapped around a DS Lite at an event in New York City last week. It felt snug and the pads felt comfortable to tap.
The grip puts drum pads over the DS Liteâs d-pad and face buttons. The gameâs executive producer, David Nathanielsz, told Kotaku that the reason for adding the peripheral was to make it more comfortable to rapidly tap to the gameâs drum patterns. âThey have this really nice push-back, bounce-back feel to them,â he said. âThey fit your thumbs well. If you start banging on that d-pad [without it,] youâd get blisters and you wonât have that feel.â
Kotaku will have more about Band Hero DS and developer Vicarious Visionsâ thinking behind the new peripheral and the game later today.