DJ Hero Review

First of all I would like to mention, this is my first review ever, so criticism to how I should improve would be greatly appreciated.

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I'm sure most everyone familiar with musical gaming recognizes the "Hero" franchise. Guitar Hero being the first one, and then eventually branching out into what's now DJ Hero and Band Hero, I will review DJ Hero, a game using a completely different style of play, but oddly similar.

First of all, let's point out the most obvious change, the turntable controller.

Complete with crossfader, effects nob, and of course a faux-record player

The controller, like most instrument controllers, is plastic, but still seems pretty durable. The "record" has three buttons on it, each corresponding to a line on the screen (Exactly like all the music games with instruments), but something different is the record spins freely. This means that in certain parts of the mixes you are required to "scratch" by holding down a button and spinning the record back and forth. While this is easy on the green button, which is nearer to the edge on the record, it is considerably more difficult for the blue button (The red button is just used for taps, there are no scratches). This difficulty of scratching the blue button may become cumbersome, but after a while you will have it down, a way I figured out to combat it is to use your thumb on the outer edge of the record to help spin it. The mistakes are very obvious in this as well, if you miss a part you will hear it, or not hear it for that matter. The audio for that specific track cuts out for a bit if you mess up on that line. For example if you mess up on the green line then you won't hear the track that corresponded with the green line for a few seconds.

The green tubes with white are scratches, the blue bumps are switches on the cross-fader. It makes it so only one track is heard at a time
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Next we'll look at the left side of the turntable, which has many more new goodies. First off, one of the most vital parts is the cross-fader switch. On standby this switch will be sitting in the middle, and when you see the track deviate off to the left for the green, or the right for the blue then you will move the switch left or right depending. So you'll see yourself hovering the cross-fader constantly to make sure to move when the parts happen. Another part of the left side is the effects nob, which is both similar to the whammy bar, and effects switch (On the rock band guitar). When you reach a freestyle part (represented by an orange bracket) you will be able to use the effects nob to change the bass and treble of the song how you want, for a short time that is. You can turn it as much as you want either way and you'll hear the bass or treble getting louder while the other gets softer, it's fun for a little bit, but otherwise doesn't earn you extra points or "Euphoria (discussed later)." The other way is to use it to change the sound for your "sample." This is where a voice says certain phrases, or for some certain noises. I myself enjoy the "posh" voice and in that he says "Bring it on" "Go DJ" "Fresh" and many more. At certain parts in the song the red part becomes a tube (similar to scratching), but is not for scratching, every time you tap the red button the sample that you have on is used. For example you can hit the red button a bunch to make it sound like a mix like "B-b-b-b-bring it on." This can be fun, because it adds a little extra to the mix, but overall doesn't help with score or Euphoria.

the red tubes are sample spots, make Flava Flav say obnoxious things repeatedly!

Then like all music games we need a Star Power mode. In DJ Hero it's called Euphoria. Exactly the same as previous games you'll notice the taps and scratches turn a light blue color and you must hit all the sequences in that phrase in order to gain Euphoria. After you have enough Euphoria a button glows red (not like you're paying much attention to the turntable anyway), and when you press it, you activate Euphoria, congrats! And like all other star power sequences, you have a limited time where your multiplier is doubled, so you have a chance to gain a pretty big score. A really cool new addition is the "Rewind" option. After hitting a certain amount of sequences perfectly you are rewarded with a rewind, which allows you to spin back the music and play a phrase over again. What's great about this is, the repeated phrase doubles your multiplier, so you can get some serious points. Activating it is fun as well, because you have to spin the record backwards at least 360 degrees. So you'll be playing and then you can spin the record backwards, repeat the phrase for points and keep going.

DJ Hero allows for your friend to pick up a Guitar and play along for some mixes!

Although I have not had the opportunity to play multiplayer yet, I've seen some cool features about it. First of all, for some mixes that have guitar in it, you can have a friend join in. It's jump-in jump-out gaming as well. So if you are in the middle of a mix and your friend with a guitar hero controller wants to play, all they have to do is hit the star power button and they are in the game! As well as guitar in the game, there is also versus mode. Similar to other versus modes you will have two people with turntables play the mixes at the same time. The disadvantage of this is you won't hear the track go out when you make a mistake, unless you both make a mistake at the same time of course. Other wise it's the same as other "Hero" games with the victor being the one with the most points. There are not attacks like Guitar Hero, you are just there to mix, and to see who is the better DJ.

Friends are fun!

The mixes are all very enjoyable, and nearly every one of them is mixed very well. Difficulties are very well put together, at early difficulties you don't feel like you are just playing notes and the game plays for you, it's just less complex sequences. Like in Hard difficulty you will be playing a lot more cross-fading and scratches, rather than medium difficulty which is less, so the mix even sounds different at higher levels. The mixes feature artists like Gorillaz, Daft Punk, Black Eyed Peas, Tupac, Marvin Gaye, and many others. Rather than having one mix with the song, the game puts the different songs with other different songs. For example there is a Feel Good Inc. mix with Heard it Through The Grapevine, but there is also a mix with Feel Good Inc. and Hollaback Girl, so you will be hearing some tracks several times, but with different mixes. The graphics look very clean, and I'm glad the characters are starting to look more normal, I know from the Guitar Hero parts the guitarists starting looking less and less human. There are still the odd characters, but that's expected. The menu system is the only bad party, there is only one menu, and it's a sliding panel. It can be very difficult to navigate where you want to go, with no options for each panel, just the different set lists.

Who's that DJ? It's Daft Punk!
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Overall this game is very enjoyable, and a great addition to music games. It's controls can be a little difficult, but the unique way of creating the controller really makes up for the minor difficulties. The mixes are all very well made, and each one sounds unique. The Cameo's from different artists including Daft Punk is really cool. I think this game really revitalizes the Hero franchise, at least for me it did. I'd definitely recommend you test it out at your local Best Buy so you can see the feel, because it's completely different using it, rather than just reading about it.

Score (out of ten)

Controls: 9
Very Well done controls, other than the one hiccup I mentioned, everything is smooth and very easy to pick up.
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Graphics: 9.5
Although you'll more be looking at the lines going down, if you stop for a second and look around, everything looks really nice. Oh and the lines look nice too
Originality: 10
There's nothing about this game that doesn't scream originality. The mixes are very unique as well, with different sounds.
Gameplay: 9
Everything moves very well, it's well set up, and never can get too difficult, unless you are trying to do expert on your first try. The only thing is the menus are awful to get though
Sound: 10
To say this doesn't have one of the best soundtracks of any game would be a blatant lie. Just looking through the mixes you are bound to find one song that you like.
Replayability: 9.5
Whether you are having a party, or you just feel like mixing some good tunes, you will be coming back to DJ Hero.

Overall: 9.6

Whether it be the excellent tracks, or the unique controller, this game really shines out in the world of music games, challenging other companies to try to come up with something as creative as this.
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It cost's $119 I got it for about $127 when taxes were added.

 

Ok, so I added the hyphens between the jump parts, and reworded the sentence to make it more understandable.

Thanks for helping me out with that.