I must be one of the last few gamers who have never touched any version of Guitar Hero. But I'm going to buy On Tour when it's released because I love rock music and Smashing Pumpkins. Billy Corgan is going to be a playable character, and from what I've read their new single G.L.O.W is going to be released first through this game, as well as older hits 1979, The Everlasting Gaze and Today.

But do I need the guitar controller to enjoy the game? I'm not interested in using more money than I need. Of course I understand that it's cooler to play with a guitar, but just how dependent is the gameplay on it?

You can play it with controller and its kinda fun. Its easier at first but gets harder as difficulty goes up. Give it a try...i liked it when i rented for ps2 back in the day (withou guitar)

On tour is already released

and I have the game, it's quite fun playing it. I may have wrists in pain every now and then but it's worth it

It's entirely possible, I do it all the time on my PS2 because I don't have the guitar, I play in Hard and get mostly 4 stars, my brother plays in expert. There's only one thing that's very difficult to do wth a controler and it's when you have a lot of consecutive notes of the same fret too close, you're bound to miss a lot. Of course the game would be better with a guitar (I'd love to have one), but it isn't any less fun with a controller

You'd be best to get the guitar. You're second best option would be to not get it all. Your third and final option would be to get it without the guitar.

its just like DDR without the pad. Easy on lower levels but hard as hell at the more advanced due to lack of functionality.

I thought this was a joke. You can actually play GH without a guitar, wtf

Yes. L2 is green, L1 is red, R1 is yellow, R2 is blue, X is orange, the analog works as the whammy bar, select activates star power and notes don't have to be strummed. You can't play Rock Band without a guitar, though

Well, I played the demo with the controller, loved it so much I bought the full game- with guitar.
Strange thing is, I like playing with the controller more.

I believe one of the achievements for one of the GH 2/3 was to play a song with only the controller. It is not bad on hard, but once you hit expert it will turn your brain to shit.