DJ Hero

Whatever next, eh? We’d seen guitars, then mics, then whole bands. We’d seen Aerosmiths, Metallicas, and finally all four Beatles marionetting their way through a whole career with custom plastic replicas of Höfner basses and Gretsch Duo Jets for your musical pleasure.

Where next in this fantastically accelerating line of peripheral-based sonic mayhem? Just how can you better the whole Sixties in a box? Turns out FreeStyleGames had figured that one out a while ago. Oh, we’d heard rumours from time to time, and heard the happy praise of our colleagues who came back from various events and games shows telling us this could well be a new and exciting experience. But we’d always kind of thought ‘cash-in, cash-in, cash-in’, and here’s a great example of Activision holding its hands up in defeat as EA and Rock Band sailed away with the prize while Guitar Hero sat back in second place, feeling as tired and old as some of yesterday’s artists in its catalogue.

So we sat down with this plastic contingency plan with more than a smattering of cynicism. It’s important you know that. Even as we lovingly ran our digits over the small but perfectly formed replica of a vinyl mixing deck, and twiddled with a few of the knobs and levers, we felt nothing but a thinly veiled contempt for this, the first nail in a coffin that would soon doubtless comprise such luminaries as Brass Band and George Formby: Ukulele Hero. Well, nuts to it.

We have to admit it’s actually rather good. Amazing, in fact. Set in our ways as we were, we fast realised this could well be the game to turn the turntablism (sorry). It’s the sense of atmosphere, for one thing. There’s a school of thought that argues that, no matter how hard it tries, a guitar game is never quite going to make you feel like Van Halen playing a sold-out arena while thousands upon thousands of fans positively wee themselves in excitement.

But how difficult is it, when playing a videogame, to feel like a badly dressed midget, skulking in the shadows and twiddling his bandy little fingers across an electronic console? See? You’re doing at least most of that already. And that’s the rub (if you excuse the semi-pun). DJ Hero makes you feel less like you’re a high-profile artist sharing ‘your’ (someone else’s) art with millions, and more like you’re scratching a few discs to make a hundred or so people have a fun night and dance. You’re not a rockstar, or a childhood idol, or a world-record-breaking platinum disc recording artist. You’re an ugly, squitty little fellow who is threading his way through two songs, mashed skilfully together, and with all kinds of funky effects added on top.

You even get a fair amount of control over those extra effects, with the game allowing you to add reverb and distortion effects at various points, and your own choice of in-game samples at various points in a song. In fact, the only parts of the game seriously dictated to you are the crossfades and the scratches, but even some of the scratches can be done at your own speed and rhythm. The sense of control is palpable.

… continued