Rather than being a game with just hardcore dance acts, the musical lineup is rather diverse, with Activision stating that DJ Hero is aimed at a “broader audience” than even Guitar Hero. The soundtrack largely involves two songs being mixed together (the younguns call them “mash-ups”) and will give the player a high level of control on the sound of each track. Fancy hearing a duet between Rihanna and Lemmy’s Motorhead or a Queen falsetto against a Beastie Boys’ beat, then this might be right up your alley. The master recordings will include tracks from a wide variety of genres, including soul, hip-hop, grunge, 70s and 80s pop and even metal. As well as the in-house mixing team, a pretty impressive lineup of DJs has also been involved in mixing some of the tracks, including Daft Punk, DJ Shadow and DJ Jazzy Jeff. All mixes in the game are reported to be original, so no cheap pre-recorded tracks here. According to Activision, there will be over 100 individual songs highlighted in over 80 exclusive new mixes.
Plastic fantastic.
The turntable controller looks to be a unique beast indeed, and has reportedly been through at least half a dozen iterations to get a good balance between being a fun and realistic peripheral. The current (and likely final) version includes a rotatable turntable and three buttons, a crossfader, effects dial, and Euphoria button. The gameplay for DJ Hero will be somewhat familiar to people who have picked up a music game in the past, yet looks to still be pretty unique and offering a high degree of challenge. The player will have to match three different coloured sections by holding down one of the three corresponding buttons, with two of them representing each of the two songs used in that particular mix, and the third representing the effects which can be adjusted with the effects dial. The Euphoria button works similarly to Guitar Hero's Star Power, collected by successfully completing specific sections in the song and activated with a press of the button, doubling the player's current multiplier and keeping the peeps on the dance-floor.
There will be symbols below the the green and blue "tracks" to represent the position of the crossfader control, while the arrow in the middle of the blue track represents the direction the player needs to turn the turntable. You will be a able to use a number of DJ “moves”, including scratching, cross-fading, and beat matching, and there will be a variety of fully sick effects and samples.
Wiggida wiggida oomph oomph and so on.
As with the past Guitar Hero games, multiplayer will play a key role. There will be both online and offline competitive and cooperative modes, including a DJ versus a DJ mode, two DJs working together, and for the people who can’t let go of their guitars there will also be ten songs that have been specifically mixed to support compatible guitar controllers in a "DJ vs Guitar" mode. In the future we can probably expect more guitar tracks in the form of downloadable content and an eventual crossover of the DJ peripheral into future Guitar Hero games. Speaking of downloadable content, FreeStyleGames, who is working on the game for Activision, has also confirmed that there will be tracks available from launch day "with some huge artists and exciting songs". Artists Eminem and Jay-Z are also serving as consultants for the game and a special edition featuring their songs as well as other branded bits and pieces will apparently be available.
DJ Hero is expected to ship for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2 and Wii in October.
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