DJ Hero brings new innovations in musical gameplay, but are they any good?
DJ Hero was a game that was released this past holiday season and apparently it “bombed” in sales (based on initial sales estimates that Activision had). At first I didn’t quite understand why, since the reviews had been pretty good for it. Once Amazon put it on sale for $70, I figured I would take the plunge in the name of the blog and let you guys know how it played. Unfortunately, cmfl3x also got it as a present, so I guess I didn’t need to take the plunge after all. He’s played a lot more into it than me, but we’ve agreed that I will give my initial impressions of the game as I am not enjoying it as much as I had hoped. He, being the more music game-inclined player between the two of us, will give a full review sometime afterwards.
One of the biggest problems I had with the Guitar Hero and Rock Band games was the lack of recognizable pop songs that I would enjoy playing to. Sure there were always a handful of songs in each game that I would like, but when about 5 out of 60+ songs are the songs you like to play in a game you buy, it’s not exactly the best deal. DJ Hero had me most interested becaues they had several songs from artists I recognize such as The Jackson 5, Vanilla Ice, MC Hammer, Black Eyed Peas, Rihanna, Jay-Z, etc. The tracklist was a strong selling point for me since I thought that maybe now I’d get a music video game that I would actually enjoy playing an “instrument” to.
While there are plenty of songs that I do recognize and enjoy, it wasn’t after I played through several of them that I felt somewhat ripped off. The game advertises something like 96 different mixes, which had me thinking, “Wow, that’s quite a large number of tracks. More than any Guitar Hero or Rock Band game. What a deal!” Unfortunately what I didn’t know is that while the mixes are “original”, the actual songs being used are repeated. Every mix is basically two different songs mixed together, but several of the more popular songs are mixed into 2-3 different mixes. With many song averaging being in 2 mixes, that really means something like 50 distinct tracks as opposed to 192 (96×2) distinct tracks. Several times I would play a new mix and think, “Didn’t I just hear this song already?” And sure enough, I did – it was just mixed in another song I played earlier. This is not that big of a deal, as I think there’s still plenty of songs to go around, but it’s worth keeping in mind so you don’t get fooled by the advertising of 96 different mixes. Different mixes don’t necessarily mean different songs.
I’ll forgive the lack of tracks that I expected, as the music that is there is still pretty good. Many of the mixes are pretty “bumpin”, since I do find my wife from time to time dancing around as she hears me playing the game so it gets points there. I would conclude from my initial impressions that the music is good, but I wish there was more variety. Still, I’ve enjoyed more tracks in this game than any Guitar Hero or Rock Band game I’ve played so far.
I think the music is the strongest aspect of the game, as the gameplay itself is not quite enjoyable for me. When I first played Guitar Hero, I remembered how awesome it was to play, even if I didn’t enjoy all of the heavy metal and rock tracks. But with DJ Hero, it’s the opposite. I enjoy listening to several of the songs, but I’m finding the actual gameplay to not really be up to par. I’ve been analyzing why this is, and have come up with several issues I have with not only the turntable peripheral, but the amount of stuff you’re expected to do with both of your hands and the tiny window of accuracy you must adhere to in order to score highly.
It’s hard to explain how DJ Hero plays, but I’ll try to summarize it as easily as possible. There’s a turntable with three buttons on it, and there are three colored tracks that come down on the screen. If a circle is on that track, you just have to hit the corresponding button. If there are “scratch” sections on that track, you have to hold the circle down and scratch the turntable by turning it back and forth. This is the primary aspect of the game. It’s somewhat simple, but I had some problems with it from the getgo. First of all, hitting buttons on the turntable that correspond to mixing makes maybe as much sense as playing a plastic guitar for piano parts of a song (which is a disturbing new trend). But what’s more annoying is that holding a button down and scratching throughout the song actually is not so fun (and can be downright painful). After a few songs, I found my arm actually sore and I didn’t really want to continue. I don’t know if it’s because the peripheral is too small for me to rest my hand on it when scratching or simply the combination of holding a button down while trying to get it to scratch is just not fun, but something was not working for me. With this being the heart of the gameplay, I knew that that could be a problem in enjoying the game.
With the core gameplay not being so hot, all of the other stuff just builds on that to make it even less enjoyable. There’s a left-right fader slide that you have to move with your left hand as the tracks sometimes shift left or right quickly. It’s an interesting concept, and the effect is pretty cool but most of the time the fader rests in the middle. Unfortunately, the nudge that indicates that your fader is in the middle is not so prominent, so you have a hard to figuring out if you’re in the middle or not. I HATED the sequences where you had to keep alternating to the left and right and middle, just because I couldn’t always figure out where I was.
The final two aspects of the game that are making me question my enjoyment of the game are that there’s too much going on on the screen (especially at higher level difficulties) and the room for error is practically none. At least when Guitar Hero got more difficult, it was all about speed – there were still 5 buttons to hit, but everything just came faster. It’s was manageable, and you could go from Easy to Expert with enough practice. In DJ Hero, you have to worry about spinning and hitting buttons with your right hand while moving the slider and adjusting a knob with your left hand. Compared to simply using your right hand to strum for a guitar, and you can see that the learning curve for playing DJ Hero is really steep. On top of that, while you can’t “lose a mix”, the room for error is ridiculous. If you’re scratching a song and you stop scratching a little early, you lose the multiplier. If you are moving the fader and you don’t get it exactly where it needs to be in time, you lose the multiplier. Even on Medium difficulty, I’m getting frustrated where I’m getting sequences where I need to move the fader while still scratching or complete my scratching at the exact same time. What is up with that? Maybe one day I’ll be able to play on Hard, but I’m also feeling like the game’s difficulty just doesn’t make it casual friendly.
In a way, perhaps DJ Hero is a music game for “pro music gamers”, and I’m definitely more of a casual music gamer. It’s not as accessible, and because it’s primarily single player (however, there are a few tracks to play co-op with a guitar), it’s not something you’d want to break out at parties. But the problem with this game for me is that I’m not even that interested in breaking it out by myself either. I think the game’s tracks are pretty good, and I like the innovation that the game adds, but the gameplay itself just isn’t too solid or enjoyable. Maybe it’s time for me to go play Band Hero.
I now understand now why the game bombed. It wasn’t that fun, and it was primarily a single player experience, which meant word of mouth was practically none. With Guitar Hero, someone would play it, love it, invite their friends over, let them play it, they would love it, they would go buy it, and so on. It would just keep spreading like wildfire. Whereas with DJ Hero, I’ve played it, didn’t really enjoy it that much, and now am telling all of you not to buy it. I am probably one of many people that did this, and have contributed to the lack of sales for the game. Needless to say, I will most likely not buy the sequel. In any case, we’ll see what cmfl3x says in his upcoming review of DJ Hero and if his thoughts differ.
Actually, I think there are 100+ master tracks mixed into the 96 original mixes. The issue is, you don’t hear the “whole” song, since for some of the songs it’s just a small cut of it. But there are actually more original songs used than mixes…it’s confusing, but it’s like music-y stuff. Even though there are 100+ master tracks though, a lot of it still sounds like it’s getting repeated, because at least for me, I always recognize the Queen sample in Ice, Ice, Baby, so it seems like it’s playing all the time. But yea, as your impressions state, there is definitely a VERY steep learning curve to the game, but I love a good challenge. More on that later. Let’s just say I’m a bit bummed that the game is doing horribly, even though like you, I understand why.
Oh, and pro-tip: after awhile you figure out the table interprets VERY subtle movements as scratching, so now sometimes i only move my finger to scratch instead of my entire wrist. I am a DJ nerd!
Did you guys play Beatmania IIDX? If so, how does the feel of the turntable peripheral compare to that?
nope never got a chance to try out beatmania but from looking at the turntable peripheral, they look somewhat similar except for the fact that DJ Hero’s buttons are actually on the turntable while beatmania’s are on the side. i think i would have preferred that option myself, although it doesn’t look like the beatmania turntable has much room to rest your scratching hand either. i’m probably not the best person to give this comparison heh