Played on:
Xbox 360
Rock music has had a good run with the cheap plastic instruments. After countless tracks in Guitar Hero and Rock Band, we're starting to see an over-saturation of the market. Far be it for Activision to stop, though, as DJ Hero is the fifth of six "Hero"-named music games released just in 2009 - and that's not including the mobile phone or arcade versions.
It's easy to lash out at Activision for milking their franchise, but I see that as more of a problem with their reissues, portable versions, and band-centric rush jobs. Actual original efforts like DJ Hero do deserve at least some praise, and while the game's harsh $120 price tag does seem like a slap in the face, the included turntable controller is actually pretty nice. The basic "highway" system you might have seen in videos looks vaguely familiar for anyone who's picked up a plastic guitar, but the difference is much bigger than you might have expected.
It's fitting to start by talking about the controller, as it's the first thing you see when you open up DJ Hero's retail box. It's made almost entirely out of plastic but feels solid, and the side panel with the extra controls on it can be swapped around for lefties. You've got the single turntable with three buttons on it, a crossfade slider switch, a button to activate Euphoria (for Guitar Hero people, that's Star Power) that lights up when it's ready, a spinner knob for special effects, and the full range of console-specific D-pad and button controls hidden under a small cover. For those who have a Guitar Hero controller lying around, some tracks also allow you to add guitar effects with the familiar interface, but overall it just doesn't add much to the music.
The tutorials for DJ Hero take you through all the stuff you'll see in a song, including the spots where you hold a button and scratch by spinning the record back and forth, swap between the two songs that make up any given track with the crossfader, and toss in your own style with the spinner knob and effects. The additional effects range from sci-fi sounds to voice samples, including some legendary voice samples from Public Enemy's Flava Flav (which I found myself unable to pull myself away from; there's nothing like a dude with a clock for a necklace yelling "Yeahhh Boyee!" during every song). For those of you who remember what Rock Band and Guitar Hero creators Harmonix did with their very first games, Frequency and Amplitude, yes - there are some similarities here. If you loved those games, then DJ Hero feels almost like a continuation of that attitude and style but with a more familiar Hero-like interface.
The first thing you may notice about the music is that all songs are mashups. Some of the song combinations make sense right from the start and some of them are pretty strange, so you'll likely find at least a few mashups you'll love and quite a few you don't. The good thing about this system is that you'll use the crossfade slider, as directed by the game, to swap between the two tracks, and you'll hear the difference while playing. The game even has you do this on purpose in some songs to censor the foul language that pops up - it's a nice touch. The downside to this is that use of the fader is entirely dictated to you by DJ Hero under threat of losing your multiplier and hearing static instead of music if you get it wrong; you don't have much more of a creative role in DJ Hero than you do with a whammy bar in Guitar Hero.
And that's probably the biggest issue with DJ Hero: unlike with Guitar Hero or Rock Band, it would make sense if DJ Hero players got some input in the mashup creation process, but they don't. It's obvious why Rock Band didn't try and let you add your own guitar solos to its library of rock songs, as the intent is to recreate songs, more or less, in their original glory. But DJ Hero specifically mangles and remixes songs in weird, new ways - anyone that has a problem with that won't enjoy this game for long anyway. But the only way you can change how a song is played is by rotating a knob for a slight effect and mashing the red button for special effects (I just call this the Flava Flav button) once in a while. You can't slide the crossfader whenever you want, nor can you scratch when you feel like it; that only kills your multiplier and earns you scorn from the game.
Not all aspects of turntablism over the last 30 years of hip-hop are explored in DJ Hero, nor is there any beat-matching or mixing to do to lead from one song into another, as each mashup has a distinct start and end. For anyone who's seen a world-class DJ at a club, you'll know that there's a pretty big disconnect between what happens in this game and what real DJs actually do. Still, for the very first video game to try and recreate the experience in pretty much any form, I think there's plenty of great music and interesting gameplay here. But there's also a ton of room for for a possible sequel to deliver new effects, new music that may or may not be just mashups, and an option for players to inject their own creativity.
While DJ Hero accomplishes a lot in its first iteration, it's difficult to ignore all the opportunities the developers are missing. With so little user creativity allowed and a very familiar multiplier/point system, players will find that this game desperately needs to get out from under the shadow of Guitar Hero. If developer FreeStyleGames can work on exploring a fuller range of music to be explored with the turntable controller and give players a little more freedom (and hopefully sell enough copies in the meantime to make it worth doing a sequel), then maybe DJ Hero has a long future ahead of it. For now, I can only recommend it to those who have a genuine interest in the controller and the music - and it helps to have $120 to spend, too.
