Activision is set to put a new spin on their beloved franchise Guitar Hero with the latest edition, Guitar Hero 5, which will feature a new game mode exclusive to the Nintendo Wii/DS, the Roadie Battle.

Debuting at a pre-launch event in San Francisco, ‘Roadie Battle’ will put two players against each other in a guitar only battle, sounds familiar right?  Well there’s a twist.  While the two guitarists are rocking the stage, two other players or two CPUs will act as the guitarist’s roadies.  This is where the DS comes in.  Using DS Download Play you can install an app to use the DS to sabotage the opposing characters guitarist while defending your guitarist from any shenanigans caused by the other roadie.

Such offensive techniques include sabotaging their rival’s amp, sound board, pyrotechnics, speakers and guitar. Want to mess with the amp?  The offensive roadie has to use the DS stylus to unscrew the back of the amp and then unplug the cables and reinsert them into different sockets.  Want to wreck the guitar? The player has to break the locks off the guitar case, snap its strings, re-string them backwards and use a robot arm to swap it out for the enemies working guitar.

The defensive side is far less complicated. Pyros cause a fire because of a roadies prank?  Just blow into the DS’s microphone to put it out. Need to restring a sabotaged guitar? Retune it by rotating the stylus on its tuning knobs. Though defense is arguably easier then offense, balancing the two is where the challenge lies.

Looks like the Wii has stepped up from being the afterthought in the Guitar Hero franchise and has brought an intriguing game mode to the table in Guitar Hero 5. The dynamic teamwork and subsequent yelling and frantic gameplay this mode will bring to Wii players will be a fresh entrance into the series.  Now only if we can find people with a Wii and two DS’s to play this with…..

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