Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, Odds and ends, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch
TUAW at E3: Guitar Rock Tour 2 and DJ Mix Tour
While we really liked Gameloft's Castle of Magic at E3, these two music games in their lineup didn't impress nearly as much. Guitar Rock Tour 2 is a sequel to Guitar Rock Tour, and as you can tell from the picture at right, it's more or less a Guitar Hero knock-off: hit the notes as they pass the line at the bottom, and you'll hear whatever song you choose to play. At this point, gameplay on all of these games is more or less the same, so song selection makes the difference, and that's where Guitar Rock Tour 2 falls short: the game contains only four original tracks, and fifteen covers. While they do lay claim to tracks by Judas Priest, Panic at the Disco, Wolfmother, Placebo and Twisted Sister, Tapulous pretty much has the market covered in terms of getting great music playable on the iPhone, and we didn't see anything during our hands on that would attract us away from Tap Tap Revenge and its various forms.DJ Mix Tour is the other music game they showed us -- this one had a club feel and had you pressing notes on a turntable rather than guitar frets. There were some interesting choices in that game -- we saw some covers of Britney Spears club mixes, as well as Lady Gaga and Darude's famous Sandstorm tune, so if you're a die-hard techno fan, there might be some new tunes in there for you among the sixteen total songs. But again, Tap Tap Revenge is so polished after all their updates, and already has such a great selection of tunes that it's hard to recommend Gameloft's versions.
Both will be available for $5.99 in the App Store sometime this month.
I know that mileage will vary among listeners, but I found this Macworld Keynote-inspired dance track hilarious. Simon Bachofen has put together a techno-inspired riff on Steve Jobs' new "Internet Communicator" aka the stylus-free iPhone. He combines keynote snippets with a driving rhythm. Workplace warning: you may find yourself tapping your foot and/or grooving down to the beat while listening. I've been dancing to this thing for the last quarter hour. It's...hypnotizing on a Hypnotoad scale of 10. You can download a copy 
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
