DJ Hero on Expert Actually Looks Pretty Cool

[John Funk]

DJ Hero on Expert Actually Looks Pretty Cool

If you've been feeling skeptical about DJ Hero thus far, watching these songs - including MC Hammer's "U Can't Touch This" vs. Vanilla Ice's "Ice Ice Baby" - played on Expert might just win you over.

Unfortunately, the videos in question don't seem to be embeddable, so you'll have to manually head over to the Official Nintendo Magazine UK [http://www.officialnintendomagazine.co.uk/article.php?id=12104] site to check them out. ONM's Chris Scullion tackles three DJ Hero songs on Expert difficulty, and I must say that the game is actually looking much better than I'd given it credit for so far.

Part of it is the music. Oh sure, it's no "Bark at the Moon," and rocking out like a superstar has an appeal all to itself that DJ Hero just can't quite capture, but the three mixes we hear in the videos are actually rather well done. We have Gwen Stefani's "Hollaback Girl" vs. Rick James' "Give It To Me," The Killers' "Somebody Told Me" vs. Eric Prydz's "Pjaano," and last but certainly not least, MC Hammer's "U Can't Touch This" vs. Vanilla Ice's "Ice Ice Baby" in a stellar blast of nostalgia from the early 90s.

The gameplay looks a lot more interesting than I'd been expecting, too. This is on Expert, so it can seem a bit overwhelming at times (how are we supposed to move both hands at the same time? It's impossible, I tell you!) but it also looks kind of fun. The sampling, the scratching, the cross-fading - it's all there, and we even get a look at the Rewind and Euphoria features once or twice.

All in all, these videos have actually sparked a bit of interest in DJ Hero for me. Didn't see that one coming.

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[RheynbowDash]

I already had my Renegade Bundle preordered and paid for. I cant wait to play a decent DJ game. (I'm not counting "Beatmania" cause that game sucks lol)

 

[Gxas]

The best song they've previewed, in my opinion, is DJ Jazzy jeff's "Rock the Bells" mix. Ahh its so good!

 

[Tireseas_v1legacy]

The more I see DJ Hero in action, the less skeptical I get over the game and gameplay. The one problem is the fact that there's significant uncertainty in how successful it will be, as the "turn-table" is likely going to spike the price up to US$100 before tax in the middle of the deepest recession in 70 years. A lack of success may simply come down to really bad timing.

 

[Credge]

I still don't understand how the game is played. I get it. You hit buttons, hold them for however long, and do some turning in the direction it tell you to turn. I get that. Are the color slides supposed to be mimic the little slide thing DJ's do with that slider? I don't know what it's called. Does the peripheral have that slider?

I mean, the game looks easy, even on expert. I'm still not sold. Of course, even if they had music I like I probably wouldn't get it because I still don't understand how to play it.

 

[Amnestic]

The more I see DJ Hero in action, the less skeptical I get over the game and gameplay. The one problem is the fact that there's significant uncertainty in how successful it will be, as the "turn-table" is likely going to spike the price up to US$100 before tax in the middle of the deepest recession in 70 years. A lack of success may simply come down to really bad timing.

In the middle of a recession? Britain's meant to be coming out of ours and we're on the mend. Dunno about the US, but I would've thought you guys would follow suit similarly. "In the middle" seems like an odd statement and I would've thought the recession would be in its dying days.

 

[VanityGirl]

I'm excited for this game after seeing the videos. It looks fun and the music isn't half bad!

 

[qazmatoz]

I couldn't be more disinterested. Mash-ups or remixes or whatever you want to call them just don't appeal to me, but then again neither does the whole DJ thing or hip hop in general. And I'm still mad at Activision, so there's that too.

 

[hansari]

All in all, these videos have actually sparked a bit of interest in DJ Hero for me. Didn't see that one coming.

The appeal I have in playing games like these is that you can do so with friends.

Does DJ Hero have any "multiplayer" capabilities? I'm sure their will be competitive, but what about cooperative?

 

[ae86gamer]

When they announced that Daft Punk was going to be in the game it got me interested. My only problem is that it'll most likely be expensive, and as a 17 year old I have little to no money.

 

[Tireseas_v1legacy]

While Mr. Bernanke says we are coming out of recession, unemployment is approaching 10% (and is still expected to rise above that), there is still a significant lack of confidence in the future of the economy, there's no political will to do what is necessary to fix the US Economy (Stimulus up the Wazoo being what is necessary), and the Health Care debate is becoming dismal as frothy-mouthed right-wingers keep screaming "Death Panels."

In this kind of scenerio, people will still drop US$60 on a hot title like CoD:MW2. However, DJ Hero is not a hot title and most will probably hold back until they see more certainty that the turn-table will see more then one game.

 

[sneakypenguin]

The more I see DJ Hero in action, the less skeptical I get over the game and gameplay. The one problem is the fact that there's significant uncertainty in how successful it will be, as the "turn-table" is likely going to spike the price up to US$100 before tax in the middle of the deepest recession in 70 years. A lack of success may simply come down to really bad timing.

In the middle of a recession? Britain's meant to be coming out of ours and we're on the mend. Dunno about the US, but I would've thought you guys would follow suit similarly. "In the middle" seems like an odd statement and I would've thought the recession would be in its dying days.

Nope we are still losing hundreds of thousands of jobs each month, unemployment is 9.8 and expected to go higher, unemployment for college age kids is 52 %, and counting underemployment the 9.8 rate is more like 17%. We have a long long ways to go.

 

[Alone Disciple]

All in all, these videos have actually sparked a bit of interest in DJ Hero for me. Didn't see that one coming.

The appeal I have in playing games like these is that you can do so with friends.

Does DJ Hero have any "multiplayer" capabilities? I'm sure their will be competitive, but what about cooperative?

There will be some limited multiplayer....there are a few songs that will actually allow a friend to use a guitar from guitar hero to joing along. I can't recall the songs off the top of my head, but I did see a demo with two people playing (with both note tracks side by side), and the Activision rep I saw said there would be future DLC content that will support additional guitar songs as well.

I imagine just like the original GH, as future versions come out (as they have already announced pre-production on DJ Hero II), I would suspect future multiplayer play....say battle of the DJ's...say two DJ's going head to head....

I for one am all over this game when it comes out. For me, it fits the musical niche I grew up on as I'm not a 'rock' purist although I do enjoy RB and GH series...DJ Hero was made for me in mind.

 

[RogueDarkJedi]

Wow, that does look pretty cool. Too bad that chick has a horrible fashion sense.

 

[megapenguinx]

I never really got why people thought that this was the "step too far" in the music game franchise. Seriously, I think GH5 was where it all went wrong. I don't think that they should stop making music games. I think that they should spread out their release times and stick to mainly releasing DLC.

 

[smithy_2045]

Haha, silly Americans and their recession.

Also, to be on topic, I still doubt I'll buy it but I certainly wouldn't turn it down if it were given to me as a present, whereas I would've probably just ebay'd it right away beforehand. Because, to be honest, it looks kinda cool.

 

[Ranooth]

Damm i may have to get this now! Does look impressive.

 

[Tony Harrison]

I will be getting this. Looks better everytime I see it.

 

[Playbahnosh]

I still don't understand how the game is played. I get it. You hit buttons, hold them for however long, and do some turning in the direction it tell you to turn. I get that. Are the color slides supposed to be mimic the little slide thing DJ's do with that slider? I don't know what it's called. Does the peripheral have that slider?

I mean, the game looks easy, even on expert. I'm still not sold. Of course, even if they had music I like I probably wouldn't get it because I still don't understand how to play it.

That "slider" you mention is the crossfader, I think, the most essential part of the mixer. It let's you control the amount of volume each deck gets in the main channel. Simply, if you slide it all the way to the right, you will only hear the song playing on the right turntable, if you slide it all the way to the left, you'll only hear the left one, and if you center the slider, you'll hear the music from both players equally. Of course if you move it slightly right, you'll hear the right one slightly more and the left slightly less, etc. I hope that helps. And yes, the crossfader is an essential part of DJ-ing, you simply cannot "mix" songs without it. (that's not entirely true, you can do it by using the individual volume sliders for each deck, but you get the point I think)

The playability is a difficult question. In a sense, it's much harder than Guitar Hero, since mostly everyone saw a guitar, and has a vague idea how to play it, but very few people saw a real DJ setup let alone know how to operate all the gizmos. In another sense, DJ Hero is closer to the real deal than Guitar Hero.

DJs need two very important skills: sense of rhythm and dexterity. The very basis of all DJ-ing is "beatmatching", that means synchronizing two songs, matching one song to the beat and speed of another one. The next one is handling the mixer, so the transition betweens songs is as seamless as possible, so it sounds like the whole set you are playing is one, very long song. If you learn these basics, and can perform seamless beatmatching, then you can move on to advanced stuff, like effects and scratching which requires even more dexterity and sense of beat down to 1/8 and 1/16 beat. Of course the difficulty grows by increasing BPM, it's easier to beatmatch an RMB song than, say, a DNB.

Now, DJ Hero looks like it's trying to show the players the whole thing at once, but strips the basics. You don't need to beatmatch or mix songs the right way, you only need to use the sliders, scratch, use effects and play samples. That's the icing on the DJ cake, but without the basics, it's nothing. I guess I'm one of the DJs who doesn't "get" DJ Hero, much like a real guitarist doesn't "get" Guitar Hero.