Just when I thought it was safe to start clearing out my embarrassingly large collection of plastic musical instruments, along comes DJ Hero. With the success of the Guitar Hero and Rockband games, DJ Hero has gotten a lot of hype, and rightly so. People love musical games, and the core rhythm mechanics of DJ Hero will give you that same warm and fuzzy feeling that the GH did when it was new and fresh.

What makes DJ Hero fun for me was the ability to pick up and play pretty easily. Fans familiar with the Guitar Hero series, are gonna notice some similarities that will help your learning curve with the game. Hitting the corresponding buttons on your turntable controller, the only real difference is the note highway coming at you is more a circle than a straight line. Bundled with the game is your controller. A pretty sturdy unrealistic recreation of a turntable. The turntable has your three main buttons red, blue, and green, on the face. Then positioned to the side of the turntable are your cross fade, EQ, and euphoria buttons. I have to say everything worked pretty well for a first generation of the controller. It was well sized, spaced, and sturdy. Once you gain your bearings on DJ Hero you shouldn’t be having too much trouble with the actual difficulty of performing on the easy to medium skill levels. I found that once you play a couple rounds you will more than likely be moving on to the harder difficulties if you are looking for any type of challenge whatsoever. Much like the Guitar Hero series, As you progress in difficulty levels you will find there are more buttons to press, more frequently. The game is a little less intuitive at the easier levels, as your corresponding actions don’t sync with the track playing as much as they do at the harder difficulties.

One of the best parts of DJ Hero is the diversity in the track list. There are 102 licensed tracks and they have been mashed to create 93 originals. Mixed by the likes of Grandmaster Flash, DJ Shadow, and the in house developers, DJ Hero has a nice blend of musical styles and artists. Equally impressive and immersing you in the club atmosphere of the game are the background graphics of the game. Its the same premise as Guitar Hero though. Your eyes rarely have time to actually appreciate what is going on back there. But, since this game has a built in No-Fail option that is always on, I definitely found myself taking my hands off the controller for a minute or so,to check out the scenery.

The game play for DJ Hero is fairly simplistic at its roots. Down the curved highway will come your scrolling objectives. Tapping the corresponding button in time with the music is the core game play but you will also be asked to scratch in sections, which is accomplished by holding the corresponding button, while rotating the turntable forwards and backwards. As difficulties are increased arrows will guide you as to the direction you should be scratching. There is also a freestyle mode which will let you insert samples into the mix as you see fit. Without going into the technical details of what cross fading is, you will also be asked to open and close the music channel by opening and closing the cross fade gate. The concept is easy to learn and hard to master, and its the equivalent to the orange button in Guitar Hero games. During the harder tracks, and skill levels you will feel like you need an extra hand. Much like a string of star notes, DJ Hero has sections which if completed perfectly will bring up a “Euphoria Mode” which is, you guessed it much like star power. This mode will double your multipliers and you can perform various tweaks on the turntable to up your score for a limited time. DJ Hero will challenge even the seasoned rhythm game pros on its hardest difficulty, but a byproduct of the challenge of the game is a fun time.

Overall, I like the innovation of the game. The fresh new perspective on the music game genre is a very welcome addition. Though, the game is not gonna be for everyone. The style in which the game is presented where I thought was cool and fresh, some might think a little corny. To make matters worse the game is priced at a ridiculous $120. For $20.00 bucks more you can pick up an Xbox 360 refurb. There are gonna be some headwinds for the product in general, but this isn’t pricing analysis it’s a review. Do I recommend it? Sure I do. It’s a great new innovative rhythm game experience that shouldn’t be passed on if you are a fan of the genre, so if you have the money go for it.

The Good:

Fun, Fun, Fun
Controller is of the quality that it is priced
Easy to pick up and play
Replay value
Diverse music selection
Graphics and Effects are Well Done

The Bad:

Price point is a little High
Monkey Level Difficulty on Easy and Medium
Some Cheesy Dialouge
Would have like to seen more multiplayer diversity