With the runaway success of Activision’s Guitar Hero franchise, and murmurs over the years of the ‘Hero’ franchise spreading out to other instruments (above and beyond the ‘standard’ guitar, drum and microphone combination), enthusiast press bloggers and industry commentators soon took up the call to guess where the mega-publisher could next turn its eye, with regular jokes cropping up about ‘Timpani Hero,’ ‘Xylophone Hero’ and, my favourite, ‘Bagpipe Hero.’

When it was announced that the next ‘instrument’ to be inducted into the ‘Hero’ franchise would be none other than a DJ mix deck, complete with working scratch turntable and crossfader, with a game entitled ‘DJ Hero,’ the aforementioned bloggers and naysayers must certainly have thought that reality had surpassed their wildest fantastical imaginings.

To make matters worse, Activision was coming under increased pressure from these self-same bloggers after the publisher’s continued milking of the ‘Hero’ brand with the announcements of multiple SKUs (stock-keepers units) per year to flesh out the franchise, which has arguably lead to the saturation, and quite possibly in the future, the complete collapse of the music game genre.

While DJ Hero is a continuation of this process (and business ‘plan’) laid out by Activision, it’s quite easily the freshest entry into the ‘Hero’ brand of music games since the original Guitar Hero, providing an experience that, much like that first game, effortlessly makes you feel like a highly talented musician (even if you’re not) with great ego-boosting results.

DJ Hero contains almost 100 songs to rhythmically button-tap and slide to, all of which are mixes and mash-ups of well-known hip-hop songs and dance tracks made famous in the club scene. How exactly do you ‘interact’ with these songs, though? Well, DJ Hero is sufficiently different from other music games (and games that require a dedicated peripheral) to warrant a bit of a focussed explanation about how the game actually works, so if you’ll refer to the two images below, and the associated letters (A, B, C and D), we can begin:

Exhibit A

Like Guitar Hero, coloured symbols will scroll down the screen and when they reach and match up with the corresponding symbol (the hit zone) at the bottom, you’ll need to push the matching button on the controller. Pushing the buttons at the right time will add to your score, and successive successful button pushes will increase your overall score multiplier.

These button pushes will also match up to the song you’re playing, so when a new sample comes in, or when harder edged notes or vocals are hit, the button press will correspond with the song’s rhythm.

Occasionally, an opportunity comes along to ‘freestyle’ some of the included samples in the game (sirens, vocals, special effects). You can either choose to use these samples when you think it’ll sound good in the song you’re playing, or spam them and press the (red) button as many times as possible to squeeze out some extra points.

Exhibit B

To mix things up (…), an extra set of coloured lines will scroll down the screen and reach the hit zone, at which time you need to not only push the corresponding button, but push and pull (or scratch) the turntable platter back and forth for the duration of the line shown – these scratches are only ever required on the outer (green) and inner (blue) tracks, and, from my experience, you’ll need to make sure you have good, differing grips to pull off each track’s scratches well.

Scratching feels nice and solid, and you’ll soon get a good feel for the weight of the turntable so you’re able to put just the right amount of effort into a movement without it running away from you. You’ll also be required to spin the platter in a full 360 degree motion with a ‘Rewind’ ability, which modifies the score multiplier and rewinds the song by a few seconds to increase your highscore, so getting a feeling for the turntable is important in advanced play.

Exhibit C

Here’s where a little more complexity is added – the crossfader. At default, the crossfader sits in the middle position of its holster, but, similar to the symbols scrolling down the screen, there will (often) be times when you’ll need to push the crossfader to the left (pictured) or to the right, depending on which coloured track its on – the outer track (green) will always be right and the inner track (blue) will always be left, before moving the crossfader back into its default middle position.

It can sometimes be a little difficult to find the exact middle of the crossfader when you need to return it there (even with the resistance it offers) and you may be punished for leaving the crossfader even a millimetre off-centre to the left or right as the game detects it as such, and ends your run of successful inputs (which grows your score multiplier).

This is one of the biggest complaints I have about the DJ Hero peripheral because it’s not necessarily the player’s fault for not returning the crossfader to the middle when required – it’s just a little difficult to position when in mid-game. This can also lead to a perfect run being ruined as a result of a glitchy, misbehaving device.

Exhibit D

Extra buttons include the Euphoria button and the effects dial, both of which are completely optional in order to play DJ Hero, but add a great deal of strategy and an extra layer of complexity if you’re looking to improve your highscores – Euphoria doubles your score multiplayer (and is acquired with successive successful button presses) and the effects dial allows you, when prompted with the on-screen track, to modify the songs different tracks ‘freestyle,’ by rapidly turning the dial back and forth.

On the DJ Hero turntable I used, the effects dial seemed to have a mind of its own and only worked around seventy percent of the time, which is another little pet peeve regarding the device – I missed out on a bunch of opportunities to increase my score due to the dial not working. Not a huge problem, but if it’s on the device, it should work as advertised.

All of these different actions combined, as well as more advanced uses of each action found in the higher difficulty settings of DJ Hero, all add up to a frantic and surprisingly uncomplicated experience as you’re constantly doing something, if it’s pressing buttons, scratching, crossfading, choosing samples, thinking about the next time you need to use ‘Euphoria,’ when you should use your ‘Rewind,’ and freestyling with your chosen samples, not to mention chaining each of these actions directly after one another and then at increasingly difficult speeds and implementations.

As difficult as DJ Hero gets, however, there’s no fail state, so you can continue pressing the wrong buttons and mistiming your actions all you want – the only punishment you’ll receive is a terrible sounding song (as different tracks cut in and out) and a low score.

That isn’t an excuse for the enormous difficulty ramp across the game’s five difficulty settings, though. The first two settings are much of a muchness, and the jump to ‘medium’ is notable but doable, but then the jump to ‘hard’ and then ‘expert’ are simply ridiculous. Instead of feeling like a true DJ, you feel like a true loser, as button presses and scratch opportunities pass you by at lightspeed, with not even a chance of completing the more advanced actions.

This is a problem, and I believe those of us less skilled at music games are essentially being locked out of a more rewarding experience after ‘mastering’ the lower difficulty settings. ‘Medium’ is challenging to me, but at this stage, ‘Hard’ is impossible.

Progressing through DJ Hero also feels very ‘linear,’ in that you simply play a setlist (comprising anything from 2 or more songs) and then move on to the next setlist. Progress is unlocked with ‘Stars’ – the better you perform in a song, the more Stars you get and the faster you can unlock extra songs, venues, avatars, accessories and samples. That’s it, though. There’s no ‘Career’ mode where you effectively feel as though you’re journeying across a country (or the world) and gaining higher status and better equipment. One setlist simply flows into the next.

The addition of a slimmed down local and online multiplayer (with dual turntables or a turntable/guitar combination) offering and the ability to create custom setlists helps flesh out the ways in which you can play DJ Hero, but progression through the campaign definitely feels empty.

DJ Hero is a wonderfully fresh, fun and frantic entry into Activision’s ‘Hero’ franchise, and should be able to re-instil the joys of music games into jaded Guitar Hero and Rock Band fans with the provision of an experience that requires similar but completely different sets of actions and skills, with ego-boosting rewards doled in spades once these skills are mastered.

Despite its problems, DJ Hero is a quality game that music game fans (and budding real-life DJs) should at least experience. The price of entry is a little steep, so it might be an idea to buy it with a friend, or with a group, and when you’re having a Guitar Hero or Rock Band ‘gathering,’ you can bring out ‘the DJ Hero’ to compliment the evening and put your brain and reaction time to the test.

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