GC - DJ Hero Hands On

Alongside Guitar Hero 5, Activision also had their coveted music game DJ Hero on show. Allowing members of the public into glass booths (complete with gorgeous dancing gals on hand), GamesCom allowed people to get as close to the actual Disc Jockey experience as they probably ever will in their life.

Personally I’ve never appreciated DJs. Any artist who just re-samples music that other people have laboured over making, then takes credit for their “hard work” is what we’d normally call plagiarism. Sure they entertain a room of people and fill it with phat beats to groove to through-out the early hours of the morning. But a round of applause is enough reward – instead they get idolised and pushed to star status for turning a couple of knobs and tweaking tracks that are not their own.

So what did I think of DJ Hero? I’m ashamed to say… I enjoyed it. And I’m still not sure why.

As you can imagine, being from the same company as Guitar Hero, DJ Hero gives gamers a specialised controller that resembles a real-life turn-table. It comprises of a rotatable turn-table with three "stream" buttons on top, a cross-fader, effects dial, and a Euphoria button which is used in a similar vein as Star Power in Guitar Hero.

Using this combination of controls, players can manipulate the music to fade between left and right channels, combine two separate tracks and switch between them, add to the mix other audio effects and of course, scratch up your tracks in typical DJ style with a twist of the turn-table. The experience takes some getting used to, but developer’s FreeStyleGames have offered a lot of control and managed to keep a similar level of fun and intuition that made Guitar Hero such a success. The visuals are very similar as well with an on-screen track that shows you what to press and when, except this time the board curves slightly resembling a slice of vinyl. In the background are the usual 3d graphics of your DJ character in full swing and the rave going on around you complete with schizophrenia inducing laser-light show.

DJ Hero is a logical way to grab a hold of that dance, hip-hop and drum & bass market that Guitar Hero has missed. But the game is still accessible and fun for almost anyone, even if only just for a short time to try out the extremely novel controller. DJ Hero have called on numerous respected DJ artists for the game, including DJ Shadow, DJ Z-Trip, DJ AM and Daft Punk. The game will also include a library of recognised tracks by artists like Nirvana, Gorillaz, No Doubt, Foo Fighters, Public Enemy, Dizzee Rascal, Beastie Boys, David Bowie and more. Not much has been mentioned in this part of the world regarding DJ Hero, but it certainly should receive a fairly decent audience in New Zealand. We’ll endeavour to bring you more as we get the word from Activision.