Ever wanted to be a DJ? Or a DJ Hero for that matter? If you had asked me those questions a couple weeks ago I might’ve said “Meh, not really” and shrugged my shoulders. There have been so many different Guitar Hero and Rock Band games over the last few years that it’s hard to really get excited for another music game. After several band-specific Guitar Hero games and the latest game, Guitar Hero 5, Activision has now ventured into a new franchise. With all the attention surrounding DJ Hero, I decided to take a look and see if this game breaks the mold of past music games, or if it’s just another excuse for Activision to sell us more plastic instruments.

Most people probably know that DJs use a turntable, but most probably don’t know exactly how they use it, or why. I definitely fell into the latter category and had never seen or used a turntable before. Luckily, Activision expected this and created some tutorials in the game to give people like me a few pointers.

Even if you have experience using a turntable, I would still recommend running through the tutorials just to get yourself familiarized with the peripheral. The tutorials are voiced by Grandmaster Flash (the first DJ to use a turntable) and take you through basic use of the turntable, and even show you more advanced moves such as crossfade spikes. The turntable itself features 3 buttons on the face of the platter (green, red, and blue), a crossfader, an effects dial, a joystick, +/- buttons, and a button for Euphoria (DJ Hero’s version of Star Power). The Wii version of the turn table uses one Wii remote for power, which is concealed below a panel when plugged in. The overall design of the turntable is very solid and the platter doesn’t feel wobbly or cheap. After about 15 hours of play time, I still don’t notice any ill effects of scratching/crossfading excessively. And don’t worry left-handers! The crossfader/button section of the turntable can be flipped to allow for left-handed use.

Now, let’s get down to the actual gameplay shall we. Like other music games before it, DJ Hero features various songs, and in most cases two songs mixed together, that can be played by matching your actions on your instrument to the music. In this case, you use the buttons, crossfader, and scratch movements that correspond to the notes as the reach the ‘Hit Zone’. Since the platter has 3 buttons, you’ll see 3 ‘streams’ of notes and actions coming at you in the game. Each stream corresponds to each song that’s being mixed as well as your own freestyle effects. For instance, the Gorillaz “Feel Good Inc.” vs. Blondie “Atomic” song would have one track where the blue button is, and one where corresponding to the green button. So when you scratch with your finger holding down the blue button, it’ll affect the Blondie track, and the green scratches would affect the Gorillaz track. Red button actions are usually your DJ’s own freestyle sounds. You’ll also notice that the streams take left and right turns on the green/blue tracks. This is to show where you need to use the crossfader. So while you’re scratching, you may also have to switch the crossfader as well. You also have various areas to use the effects dial which gives 2x points for that given area in the song. It sounds very complicated, but Activision did a great job designing the turntable to be easy to use, even when there’s a lot going on at once. There’s a little bit of a learning curve, but after a little while, I had no problem getting through most songs on hard with a 3 star rating.

DJ Hero features over 100 songs that comprise 93 unique mixes to choose from. There are mixes that will satisfy most any taste in music from hip-hop to techno, ambient, pop, or even dance. There are even songs that feature guitar tracks which can be played using a Guitar Hero guitar. Some of the featured artists include: Beastie Boys, Justice, Beck, Cypress Hill, Eminem, Jay Z, The Killers, and Weezer. It’s seriously one of the best and most diverse soundtracks of any music game to date.

Multiplayer

The game allows for 2 DJs to play together and/or 1 DJ and 1 Guitar both locally and online. The multiplayer is probably my least favorite part of DJ Hero because of the limit of 2 players simultaneously. Granted, it may be hard to find 4 people with DJ Hero turntables since this is the first game, but I’m hoping for future games they consider it. Games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band are great for parties, while DJ Hero isn’t the most fun with a bunch of friends. I played a few songs with some friends this last weekend and it was hard to get everybody into it. Only one of us could play the turntable at a time, and even when we got the guitar involved, it wasn’t nearly as fun as having all 4 of us play together. I’m not saying you shouldn’t buy the game because of the lack of 4-player support, but it’s definitely not as good a party game as other music games have been. The online mode is a great feature, and overcomes a little bit of my multiplayer woes by being able to hook up with someone else online.

Conclusion

It’s hard to describe the DJ Hero/turntable experience without having you try it out for yourself. It offers a unique to challenge to gamers that are so used to playing the drums or guitar. I didn’t have the highest expectations for the game, but I was pleasantly surprised by the great track lineup and fun gameplay. The experience of playing DJ Hero is very addicting and definitely worth checking out. I would honestly recommend DJ Hero to anyone tired of Guitar Hero/Rock Band, or newcomers to music games.

DJ Hero gets a 9.0/10