Review
by Daemon Hatfield
For many, exactly what a DJ does up in that DJ booth at the club is a mystery. But now you can find out with DJ Hero, the latest in the never-ending line of Hero games from Activision. Because this is a new type of music game, there's a lot to explain, but let's get this out of the way first: DJ Hero is fantastic. It's one of the best games I've played this year and one of the best music games I've ever played. Hopefully you've saved space for one more plastic instrument in your living room, because you're gonna' want to have DJ Hero on hand for your next party.
DJ Hero goes back to the simpler times of music games before there were world tours and fans to earn. You work through tiers of songs and unlock new mixes, characters, and costumes by earning stars -- but that's pretty much all you have to worry about. This simple design puts the focus on the music, which is excellent. DJ Hero has one of the best and certainly most diverse track lists of any music game. Unless you listen to country music exclusively, you will find songs here you love.
Even better, the 102 licensed tracks have been mashed-up to create 93 original songs that you won't hear anywhere else. 50 Cent is mixed with David Bowie, Beastie Boys are mixed with Blondie, and Vanilla Ice is mixed with MC Hammer. Many mixes were created by the in-house DJs at developer Freestyle Games, but a healthy amount was produced by well-known disc jockeys like DJ Shadow and Grandmaster Flash. The entire soundtrack is superb and could easily stand on its own outside the game. If you just want to hear the music you can enable Party Play and sit back while the mix takes care of itself (you won't earn any points, though).
DJ Hero goes back to the simpler times of music games before there were world tours and fans to earn. You work through tiers of songs and unlock new mixes, characters, and costumes by earning stars -- but that's pretty much all you have to worry about. This simple design puts the focus on the music, which is excellent. DJ Hero has one of the best and certainly most diverse track lists of any music game. Unless you listen to country music exclusively, you will find songs here you love.
Even better, the 102 licensed tracks have been mashed-up to create 93 original songs that you won't hear anywhere else. 50 Cent is mixed with David Bowie, Beastie Boys are mixed with Blondie, and Vanilla Ice is mixed with MC Hammer. Many mixes were created by the in-house DJs at developer Freestyle Games, but a healthy amount was produced by well-known disc jockeys like DJ Shadow and Grandmaster Flash. The entire soundtrack is superb and could easily stand on its own outside the game. If you just want to hear the music you can enable Party Play and sit back while the mix takes care of itself (you won't earn any points, though).
DJ Hero also looks great with sweeping, dynamic camera shots of the club gettin' crunked. You can't create your own DJ but there are a bunch of amusing unlockable characters, including superstar DJs like Daft Punk and Z-trip. I only wish the DJs' movements were more in synch with the track, because there are times when you're furiously scratching and your avatar somehow has both its hands in the air.
A new type of music game means there's a new controller you'll have to learn how to use. DJ Hero comes with the turntable controller. Half of it is the record platter with three face buttons and the other half is the mixer that includes the cross fader, effects knob, euphoria button (which enables DJ Hero's version of star power), and the native controls for whichever system you're playing on. These halves can be separated and flipped around for left-handed players.
The controller feels sturdy and it's a lot of fun to use. If you've never laid your hands on a turntable and mixer before it will likely feel very alien, but DJ Hero includes a helpful tutorial (hosted by Grandmaster Flash) to walk you through everything and the "beginner" and "easy" difficulty settings live up to their names. Whatever difficulty you're playing on you won't ever fail a song. That's not how DJ Hero rolls. If you aren't performing so hot the sound will cut out and you won't earn as many stars, but that's the most punishment the game will dish out. What DJ Hero is lacking is a practice mode that lets you slow down the music and work it out at a slower pace, as you've been able to do in Guitar Hero for years. You'll wish you could slow things down when you get to the Scratch Perverts mixes in the depths of the track list.
When playing a song you'll find the familiar colored symbols coming towards you as you tap the turntable's face buttons in time with the music. But when it's time to scratch you have to hold down the corresponding button and move the turntable back and forth. On lower difficulty settings you can move the turntable any way you like, but later on you'll have to follow onscreen arrows that indicate whether to push it forward or pull it back. Like Guitar Hero, I find DJ Hero becomes more fun and rewarding on higher difficulty levels.
Then there's the cross fader, which you'll have to push left and right in correspondence with the onscreen audio stream. Think of it like an audio gate: when the cross fader is in the center position the audio from both record A and B is allowed through, but by pushing it to either side you can close the gate on one record and isolate the other audio source.
A new type of music game means there's a new controller you'll have to learn how to use. DJ Hero comes with the turntable controller. Half of it is the record platter with three face buttons and the other half is the mixer that includes the cross fader, effects knob, euphoria button (which enables DJ Hero's version of star power), and the native controls for whichever system you're playing on. These halves can be separated and flipped around for left-handed players.
The controller feels sturdy and it's a lot of fun to use. If you've never laid your hands on a turntable and mixer before it will likely feel very alien, but DJ Hero includes a helpful tutorial (hosted by Grandmaster Flash) to walk you through everything and the "beginner" and "easy" difficulty settings live up to their names. Whatever difficulty you're playing on you won't ever fail a song. That's not how DJ Hero rolls. If you aren't performing so hot the sound will cut out and you won't earn as many stars, but that's the most punishment the game will dish out. What DJ Hero is lacking is a practice mode that lets you slow down the music and work it out at a slower pace, as you've been able to do in Guitar Hero for years. You'll wish you could slow things down when you get to the Scratch Perverts mixes in the depths of the track list.
When playing a song you'll find the familiar colored symbols coming towards you as you tap the turntable's face buttons in time with the music. But when it's time to scratch you have to hold down the corresponding button and move the turntable back and forth. On lower difficulty settings you can move the turntable any way you like, but later on you'll have to follow onscreen arrows that indicate whether to push it forward or pull it back. Like Guitar Hero, I find DJ Hero becomes more fun and rewarding on higher difficulty levels.
Then there's the cross fader, which you'll have to push left and right in correspondence with the onscreen audio stream. Think of it like an audio gate: when the cross fader is in the center position the audio from both record A and B is allowed through, but by pushing it to either side you can close the gate on one record and isolate the other audio source.
At several points during a song, Perfect Regions will scroll by, indicated by glowing notes. Hit every note in these regions perfectly and you'll earn Euphoria, or Star Power (don't know why they didn't call it Ecstasy, but whatever). When you activate Euphoria your score multiplier will be doubled and the crossfader will go on autopilot -- very handy for tricky bits. To push your score even further you'll need to use the effects dial to manipulate the sound during Effects Zones. This will add a personal touch to the mix and, again, double your multiplier.
The one mechanic that doesn't really work for me is the freestyle mode that lets you play samples at will during specified parts of a mix. Before you start a song you can pick a sample set from a list that boasts some classic hip-hop sounds (including two Flavor Flav sets). Then, when prompted, you can mash the red turntable button to your heart's content to playback those samples. But these taps aren't scored, so the feature is little more than a gimmick. You also have to spin the effects dial to cycle through your samples, something you probably don't have time for anyway if you're playing an advanced song. Eventually I just ended up ignoring this feature.
DJ Hero runs the gamut of challenges: the easiest settings and songs will allow anyone to jump in, but the later tracks on expert are absolutely insane. If you've been around the block with other music games or if you have a good sense of rhythm, you'll get the hang of things pretty quickly. Playing DJ Hero has about as much in common with really using a turntable and mixer as playing Guitar Hero does with playing a guitar. But that's fine -- this is a game and it's only required to be fun, which it certainly is. I do a bit of DJing myself and love the game, but knowledge of the practice isn't required to have a good time. IGN Editor Greg Miller is a Taylor Swift superfan who has never laid hands on the ones and twos and he loves DJ Hero just as much as I do.
The one mechanic that doesn't really work for me is the freestyle mode that lets you play samples at will during specified parts of a mix. Before you start a song you can pick a sample set from a list that boasts some classic hip-hop sounds (including two Flavor Flav sets). Then, when prompted, you can mash the red turntable button to your heart's content to playback those samples. But these taps aren't scored, so the feature is little more than a gimmick. You also have to spin the effects dial to cycle through your samples, something you probably don't have time for anyway if you're playing an advanced song. Eventually I just ended up ignoring this feature.
DJ Hero runs the gamut of challenges: the easiest settings and songs will allow anyone to jump in, but the later tracks on expert are absolutely insane. If you've been around the block with other music games or if you have a good sense of rhythm, you'll get the hang of things pretty quickly. Playing DJ Hero has about as much in common with really using a turntable and mixer as playing Guitar Hero does with playing a guitar. But that's fine -- this is a game and it's only required to be fun, which it certainly is. I do a bit of DJing myself and love the game, but knowledge of the practice isn't required to have a good time. IGN Editor Greg Miller is a Taylor Swift superfan who has never laid hands on the ones and twos and he loves DJ Hero just as much as I do.
Leaderboards are a little lackluster. You can view a list of scores for each song but it doesn't indicate what difficulty anyone is playing on. Like other music games there are more notes to hit on higher difficulties meaning a higher score is possible, but it would be nice to see whether the person sitting right above you on the board was playing on the same setting as yourself.
For multiplayer you can fire up two turntables or you can add a guitar on a few select tracks so that one player can rock the turntable and the other can just rock. Guitar and turntable mode is fun but the dual turntable battles are a little disappointing because each player controls identical parts of the song. With Guitar Hero we're used to being able to select guitar or bass so that each player is contributing something different to the performance. There are a bunch of turntable crews out there that perform with multiple people manipulating multiple records, so hopefully that can be added for the DJ Hero sequel.
For multiplayer you can fire up two turntables or you can add a guitar on a few select tracks so that one player can rock the turntable and the other can just rock. Guitar and turntable mode is fun but the dual turntable battles are a little disappointing because each player controls identical parts of the song. With Guitar Hero we're used to being able to select guitar or bass so that each player is contributing something different to the performance. There are a bunch of turntable crews out there that perform with multiple people manipulating multiple records, so hopefully that can be added for the DJ Hero sequel.
Closing Comments
In an overcrowded genre of music games, DJ Hero resides at the very top with the best of 'em. The original mixes are stunning and scratching the turntable is just as fun as it seems. It's not as full-featured as Rock Band 2 or Guitar Hero 5, but the simpler presentation really works in its favor. Like an '80s arcade, mixmasters will be gunning for those high scores on the leaderboards. A little headroom has been left for improvement with a sequel, particularly in the head-to-head battles and the way leaderboards display scores. But DJ Hero is already the most exciting music game around and is guaranteed to get the party started. To paraphrase Run DMC: gosh darn that DJ made my day.
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