With the massive success of rhythm games over the past few years, a charge led by the likes of Guitar Hero and Rock Band, it only makes sense that companies would look for a way to expand the genre. Enter last year's DJ Hero.
Made by the same folks who make Guitar Hero, DJ Hero, rather than giving you a fake guitar or drums or bass to pretend to strum, gives you a pretend turntable to spin. It is certainly an enjoyable experience, and the new DJ Hero 2 does have some interesting features that the first does not possess, but it still seems to lack that which makes Guitar Hero and Rock Band great.
Before we get too far into issues however, let us start with the basics. The game itself functions much like last year's original – each controller setup consists of two parts, the turntable and the doodads. Okay no respectable DJ would call them doodads, but that's neither here nor there, the doodads are the crossfader, Euphoria button (like Star Power in Guitar Hero, Euphoria helps increase your score), and the effects knob. The turntable – which can be placed either on the right side or the left side of the doodad section– has red, green, and blue buttons which get tapped, held, and manipulated in conjunction with the table and doodads to score points. The turntable itself can be oriented so that the buttons are on either the right or left side.
As with almost every rhythm game, DJ Hero 2 has a wide black line that runs down the middle of the screen (or the middle of each split if you're in multiplayer) which tells you what to do with the turntable and doodads. Crossfading, scratching, taps, and effects all return from the original version of DJ Hero, but added to the new version are held notes, length scratches (long, single direction scratches), and allegedly more freestyle ability.
One of the knocks against the first DJ Hero is that being a DJ is about doing new, different, and potentially unplanned things; it's about being in the moment and DJ Hero doesn't allow for that. These new freestyle elements in the sequel attempt to correct that mistake but aren't hugely successful in that endeavor. The new game will allow you to – at certain points – run some pre-selected samples, crossfade from one of the tracks to the other as you desire, and scratch as you want. The mechanics to these elements are all good, but they don't really allow for all that much creativity. As stated, samples are now pre-selected for you, but even if they weren't, forcing them – or any other move – into a specific slot stifles creativity and right there is where the game runs into "bigger picture" issues.
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