E3 09: I Think I Might Like DJ Hero

By
Sluggo
– June 4, 2009Posted in: Music Games

I’d watched the booth demos of DJ Hero at least four times at E3 and was still having trouble wrapping my head around how it worked. But after meeting with the Activision folks for a few up-close demos, I think I’m starting to understand. And I think I like it.

From a gameplay-mechanic standpoint, it’s sort of like a three-track version of Guitar Hero, using a turntable controller with three buttons. The outermost green button corresponds to the left track, “Record 1,” while the innermost blue button corresponds to the right track, “Record 2.” The central red button is a “scratch” button. There’s a crossfader on the left, which you use to switch back and forth between record 1 and 2. As the track progresses, you’ll see either single-hit notes or scratching sections, where you either press down the corresponding button or hold it down and make a scratching motion with the turntable. Got it so far?

djhero

What you end up with is a game where you have two songs playing together and you’re switching back and forth and scratching. According to Activision, they’re licensing over 100 songs to create 80 unique mash-ups, and in addition to their own internal folks, they’ve also turned to some big names in the DJ scene to create mixes: DJ Shadow, DJ z-Trip and DJ AM. While they haven’t revealed many of the recordings, the few I’ve heard sound interesting, like the Beastie Boys “Sabotage” vs. the Foo Fighters “Monkey Wrench or Gwen Stefani’s “Hollaback Girl” vs. Rick James’ “Give It To Me Baby.” It’s a weird case where the soundtrack could be so interesting that even people mildly interested in the game pick it up just to noodle along with the mash-ups.

In addition to the usual single-player score mode, DJ Hero will let two DJs battle back and forth, as well as a special mode where a DJ can battle against a guitarist on 10 special mixes. I didn’t get to play myself, so it’s hard to tell how intuitive the peripheral is to use, but if it’s solid, the mixes could make it an interesting addition to the music genre this holiday.