You stand high above a crowd of thousands occupying Times Square. Spotlights flash and flow all around you. Music beats heavily over the stacks at your sides as you scratch, fade, and mix two songs into one. The din of the crowd is deafening as you create this masterpiece of modern turntablism. The song ends, and you take your crown as a DJ Hero.
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At least, that’s what the game would like you to feel.
DJ Hero is the latest in a long line of games created by Activision to corner a dwindling market: rhythm/action. Like Guitar Hero and Band Hero before it, the draw is to interact with music in a new way through peripherals that act like the instruments on-screen. Unlike the others, the weapon of choice here is a plastic turntable instead of a guitar or drums.
The peripheral itself is both well made and designed as such. It basically consists of a plastic record with three Guitar Hero-esque buttons stuck on top (green, red, and blue in order) with a crossfader, audio tweaker, and Euphoria (the games’ Star Power) button set in a separate panel next to the record. This separate panel can be unhooked and flipped to the opposite side for left handed players.
Playing the game can be intimidating at first. I’ve personally had an appreciation for turntablism for many years and have a basic idea on how this should work. For those unfamiliar, the game does little to ease you in. What it does do the first time you load it is force you to play the tutorials. It’s a good thing too, since if you tried to play the first time without doing them, you’d probably not try again.
Scratching has you hold either the green or blue button down at the start of what looks like a sustain line, moving the record back and forth, and then letting go at the end of the line. Both the green and blue buttons correspond to one song each, thus the mixing. On every difficulty but hard or expert you can scratch any way you like. The former and latter difficulties introduce directions for you to scratch in. On expert mode, this is infuriating as there’s not much clear indication on which way to scratch unless you’re intimately familiar with the way actual scratching works. Otherwise, you had better hope you can sight-read tiny colored arrows very quickly.
With fading, the game moves either the green line or blue line connected to each hit spot left or right. Those directions aren’t mutually exclusive, so be prepared to move the fader EXACTLY in time. The game is totally unforgiving even on easier difficulties, and if you miss by even a fraction of a second you’ll break your combo. This is exacerbated by fade spiking later where you have to fade and move back to the previous position instantaneously. Tweaking has you move the tweak knob back and forth at spots designated by a yellow bridge over the green or blue line. This is basically your Whammy Bar. You don’t have to use it, but if you do it’ll add a few extra points to your score.
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Finally, freestyling has you hitting the red button as much as you like in long sustain lines thrown into the mix. Turning the audio knob will change to one of five samples available to you and you can change it back and forth as much as you like, even outside of the freestyle areas (but not during Tweaking sections). If you hit enough of these different actions in a combo, you’ll be rewarded with a rewind, where you can spin the record backwards and replay a section of the song you just got through.
Now that you’ve got the hang of the mechanics, let’s talk about what you’re here for!
But that’s the problem. The soundtrack will astound you, but only if you’ve got a taste as eclectic as the flavors of Ben & Jerry’s. There’s hip-hop, rap, electronic, rock, alternative, jazz, funk, new wave, and more all smashed against one another vying for your attention. There is no way the game can appeal to everybody all the time. This alone is the game’s strong point and one of its downfalls.
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Another thing the game has going against it is a serious lack of mass appeal. Rock music is practically universal in its fantasy to its listeners.. DJ’ing just doesn’t have as wide a following nor as many people who’d rather buy a turntable and vinyl records to play instead of picking up a guitar. Anyone can play air guitar. There’s a basic knowledge as to how a guitar operates. Most people haven’t got a clue as to how a turntablist works their instrument.
Further, the game doesn’t have the party crowd draw like Rock Band or recent Guitar Hero games do. There is a solitary peripheral to play with. The game does offer a tacked-on “DJ + Guitar” mode to try and get GH vets interested but those mixes are the weakest in the game. There is also a totally unmentioned ability to plug in a microphone and make noises or sing along to the tracks at any time, but it doesn’t earn points and drowns out the music going on behind it. It is worthless and a bizarre thing to add. There is also an online mode that is of equal merit to the microphone, since I can’t find anyone online after trying several times over the course of a week.
When it comes right down to it, DJ Hero is best used in a solitary environment to a person of eclectic musical taste and a strong predilection to rhythm gaming. So basically, myself and 20 other people on the planet. Unless you have a mighty need for a new rhythm distraction and meet all the previously mentioned requirements, pass this one up. I hate to say it, too. The game is well made and great for what it is, but it really won’t catch on unless some drastic actions are taken to change up the formula.
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