Guitar Hero-- er... Guitar Rock Tour for iPhone is finger-tappin' good.

At the risk of sending Activision's legal department into a tizzy, Gameloft's Guitar Rock Tour is essentially Guitar Hero for the iPhone. It looks, sounds, and plays an awful lot like that mega-popular game, though obviously an iPhone can't take the place of a big plastic guitar. It can, however, recreate the onscreen experience with perfect pitch, and that's what it does. While music game fans will find much to like in Guitar Rock Tour, they'll also uncover a bit to dislike as well.

The game offers four frets' worth of fake-guitar-caliber thrashing, though you also have the option of getting your drum on with a snare and bass. Guitar Rock Tour comes with 17 lively cover-band songs, including those originally by Avril Lavigne, The Kinks, The Police, and even Michael Jackson. It’s a good mix of rock, pop, punk, and indie tunes, but only a few are available at the beginning--you’ll have to give successful performances to unlock the rest.

And what constitutes a successful performance? Tapping falling notes at just the right time, natch. The better your timing, the more points and applause you get. Miss too many and you get booed--and eventually booted off the stage. As in other games, there's a power meter you can charge up and then flip to increase the score multiplier.

Guitar Rock Tour looks and sounds fantastic, and it's definitely a challenge. You'll need nimble fingers even in Easy mode and "Devil Went Down to Georgia"-speed for the Medium and Hard modes. Half the trick is learning to finger-slide between two frets for double notes. You can also tap with two fingers, but Guitar Rock Tour didn't always register that properly. Your mileage may vary if you're young and dextrous.

The game has a few minor issues. It's slow to load initially, and slow to load levels. Also, you can flip your iPhone so your fingers don't block the speaker, but the screen image frequently flipped upside-down on us during the middle of a level ruining our groove.