Interested in DJ Hero? cmfl3x thinks it’s an itch worth scratching
This one’s gonna be a tough one. On the one hand, DJ Hero has innovative gameplay, a great tracklist, a well built peripheral, and a lot of small, but cool features, that really help make it a solid package. On the other hand, it’s done horribly in sales, is hampered by an insane difficulty curve, and is published by Activision, the evil empire of gaming right now. So do I review the game based on my personal experience, or do I need to take into account all the other factors? I’m not totally sure, but we’ll find out together after the jump…
Why it matters that “evil” Activision published this game
DJ Hero is the latest in Activision’s “Hero” games, which for all intents and purposes are completely oversaturating the music game scene (along with Rock Band). The problem with DJ Hero being an Activision game is that everyone hates Activision right now. Deservedly, Activision has gotten a reputation of just stealing consumers’ money and only caring about the bottom line (which is more or less true). So there’s been a lot of backlash about the DJ Hero game, even from consumers, and it has hurt sales. It’s not the ONLY thing that hurts sales, which I will get into later, but DJ Hero definitely has hurt sales. “Another Hero game? Forget it.” But I have a fundamental problem with all this hate for the DJ Hero series because it’s from Activision. Why? Because two years ago, when EA was the evil empire, they released Mirror’s Edge and Dead Space, two new, risky IPs, and gamers praised them for it. Activision has taken the same sort of risk with DJ Hero, albeit in an attempt to make money, but they are getting panned. It doesn’t make sense! We should support publishers, especially big publishers, taking risks with games and innovating, or in this case, bringing back old school innovations (Konami’s Beatmania).
Why am I writing about the Activision thing in this review? Because it influenced my initial impressions of the game. I too bought into the whole, “this is just an extra peripheral that’s going to take up space and the game is gonna suck” thing and didn’t want to buy the game. But reviews were positive enough to get me interested, and then my sister bought DJ Hero for me for Christmas, and I’m glad she did. So enough boring stuff, time for me to talk about the actual game.
Is DJ Hero’s gameplay any good?
DJ Hero pits you as an actual DJ, and you play along to various mashups and mixes that have been created specifically for the game. As espion4ge stated in his impressions, there are 90+ “mixes” which are composed of two or more tracks, which do tend to repeat quite a bit. Tempering the annoyance of repeating tracks is the fact that different samples are used from each track, so when they’re dropping the No Doubt beat, in one mix you’ll hear “b-a-n-a-n-a-s” but in another mix you’ll just hear Gwen singing the “holla back girl” section.
Some people dislike it, but I have no real problem with the peripheral, though I will agree that it takes some getting used to. Even though it makes no sense that the buttons are on the turntable part of the peripheral, I think it works. You need something to do, and I like tapping along with the beat, and I definitely like the feature of pushing the button while you are scratching, unlike espion4ge. It takes awhile getting used to, but eventually I was able to scratch just using my finger muscles, and not my wrists, which made me much less tired. Another neat feature is the “rewind” feature, if you hit enough notes in a row, you will see a rewind symbol light up, and you can spin the record backwards to reeeeeeeewind, and play a section over for more points. It feels pretty sweet.
The gameplay looks pretty complicated, but practice makes perfect
While you are pushing buttons and scratching with your dominant hand, your off hand has some other crazy stuff to do. Your left hand rests on the cross-fader, which allows you to switch between tracks. So you will be playing Queen’s “We Will Rock You”, then fade to the left and it’ll be Daft Punk’s “Robot Rock”, and back and forth, to great effect. On top of that, there’s an effects knob that you can turn for multiplier bonuses, and cross fading gets pretty intense at the harder difficulties. There is a lot going on, and it’s not “synced” like it is in Guitar Hero – you can be scratching with your right hand and cross fading with your left, both at different rhythms. The game is no joke. But surprisingly, that’s what appeals to me the most. The difficulty makes me feel like I’m actually a DJ, since DJ’s have to multitask so much. Aside from the button pressing, it feels pretty realistic. Scratch, scratch, fade, scratch, fade, REWIND, scratch, scratch, fade, scratch fade. When you get it right, it looks, feels and sounds pretty awesome.
Thus, I absolutely love what DJ Hero does for music games. It introduces a unique and challenging gameplay style. As a hardcore music gamer, I appreciate the challenge of learning a new “skill”. I’m tired of blowing through expert in the Rock Band games (though I still can’t handle everything in Guitar Hero), and it’s fun to actually “work” to get good at a game. Yes, the learning curve is high. But isn’t that a good thing sometimes? Just like a gamer like espion4ge is willing to go through Ninja Gaiden 2 on it’s hardest difficulty, I think music gamers should appreciate DJ Hero. But…
Why the game isn’t selling
They don’t. Or at least, nobody is buying the game. It’s sold about 700K copies, which is pretty good until you factor in how much the peripheral probably cost Activision. There are a couple of reasons why the game isn’t selling. Firstly, it’s difficult, as I said, and thus it doesn’t appeal to as wide a spectrum of consumers. Secondly, DJing seems much more abstract compared to picking up a plastic guitar at this point, and I think that is dissuading consumers as well. Third, gamers who might ordinarily buy the game are sick of making living room space for plastic instruments.
The fourth, and probably most damning reason, is the fact that DJ Hero isn’t a party game. With Guitar Hero/Rock Band, you can pass the guitar around, and you can play in a party and have a good time. But since DJ Hero is much more difficult to learn, you really can’t do that. If my friends come over and I am playing the game, it will be more fun for them to just watch me play and listen to the music than deal with the frustration of learning all the intricacies. That’s a real problem if you are trying to sell games. And that’s unfortunate. But I’m not here to figure out whether DJ Hero should be a bestseller, my job is to determine whether it’s fun to play on its own. So it’s time to wrap this up.
Final thoughts
In coming up with a final grade for this game, I’ve decided to weight the gameplay and tracklist over all those other outside factors. Yes, the game is difficult. Yes, it’s no fun to play with friends. Yes, pushing buttons on a turntable is ludicrous. And yes, you sometimes hear the same songs over and over. BUT:
1. The music in this game is AWESOME. Some favorites: Jay Z’s “H to the Izzo” + Jackson 5′s “I Want You Back”, Aranbee Pop Symphony Orchestra’s “Bittersweet Symphony” + LL Cool J’s “Rock the Bells”, all the Beck remixes, and Benny Bayassi’s “Satisfaction + Tiesto’s “Elements of Life”.
2. DJ Hero has a “party mode”. If you hold the euphoria (star power) button, the game will just play any setlists you create automatically, and you can just let the music play in the background while you…dance…or do whatever you want to do at a party. The music is worth it.
3. It’s a good challenge for those who want to take it on. This may not be everybody, but this = me.
4. When you get the hang of it, it’s a lot of fun, and you will find that you will notice others in the room bouncing up and down to the beat.
5. If Activision sticks with it, there is potential for the franchise. It probably won’t make as much money as they’d like, but I’m sure they can find some dedicated fans. It could be a niche game, but a game that fills a bigger niche.
Anyway, $120 might be too steep a price to pay, but prices are slashed all over the place now. I spent $100 on Guitar Hero 2, an investment that was well worth it. If you don’t want to spend that much, find DJ Hero for cheap and check it out, or find a friend. Give the game an hour, it’s at least worth the time investment. Just don’t blame me when you have random mash-ups stuck in your head all day.
Final Grade: A-
the contrast in my impressions and reviews just goes to show our readers that our gaming tastes do actually differ!
you do make valid points though: i was dissuaded by the extreme learning curve and challenge within DJ Hero, whereas you embraced it. I think for me, music games are more of a casual thing, and I like being entertained rather than stressed (and potentially frustrated) when playing them. but for anyone in the same boat as you that wants challenge in a music game, i can whole-heartedly agree that DJ Hero delivers.
I think Activision already announced DJ Hero 2, so it looks like DJ cmfl3x will get to continue spinning the beats hah