Toronto Thumbs

X’09 PREVIEW
DJ Hero

When I first saw the peripheral for DJ Hero in a press release, I had no idea how it would even work from a mechanical perspective. On Tuesday at X’09, I got to find out, first hand. After watching a few other demonstrations of it, I stepped up to the deck and found I was actually in the middle of a bigger demonstration for a larger group.

Jordan Dodge, the Activision publicist who was showing off DJ Hero, explained the basics. This was going to be quite different from what I’d been accustomed to from Guitar Hero. Like in that game, visual cues onscreen correspond to audio notes (in this case beats, samples, and such). As the markers scroll to current spot in the song, it’s up to players to tap, tweak, and scratch along.

The overall feeling, then, is that you’re effectively mixing two songs together. From the few songs that I played, and from the ones I watched other play, the mash-ups are extremely well done. I put my DJ Hero skills to the test first with a mash-up of Queen’s “Another One Bites The Dust” with Daft Punk’s “Da Funk” and it was way more fun than I had otherwise imagined.

Single beats scroll along the screen, and these are punctuated by instances of longer scratch notes on the song timeline. When these appear, you have to hold down the corresponding button(s) and scratch the turntable back and forth to the beat of the song. Now because there were a lot of other games being demonstrated, it was a little hard to fully appreciate the artistry of the mix, but the vibe was definitely still there.

On harder difficulty levels, DJs have to pay attention to which direction they’re supposed to be scratching the record in. You can also spin the turntable freely, which I had only seen happen once the whole time I was watching other people play.

Scratching direction isn’t the only advanced control element in the harder difficulties, however. There’s also the crossfader, which must be switched on cue to the left, middle, or right position. This effectively emulates the mixing of the two songs and it sounds and feels just as you’d want it to. In addition to this there’s a pitch-shifting knob which works similarly to the whammy bar from the Guitar Hero peripherals.

The build quality of the turntable deck seemed surprisingly solid. Standard controller buttons such as the D-Pad and the A, B, X, and Y buttons are hidden out of sight under an opaque plastic flap. This helps with the sleek visual aesthetic of the device. The deck itself feels quite sturdy, and for those of you worried about peripheral overload, it’s also quite compact. The musician in me is curious about its music-making capabilities outside of the game.

Jorge commented immediately after seeing it that he was going to buy DJ Hero for sure. Yes, the game is also just a hell of a lot of fun to watch. Jordan Dodge, for instance, has over 100 hours of experience playing the game and he was not afraid to demonstrate that on a few expert-level songs. It was somewhat mind-blowing to watch. Did I mention you can sync up a guitar controller and rock along while the DJ cuts up the beat? Well now I did.

Check out our X’09 gallery for more photos from the event, including a bunch of people playing DJ Hero.

X’09 Gallery »

Posted in PlayStation 3, Previews, Wii, Xbox 360 |