Emulate The Blessed DJ

For the first time in a couple of years, it seems we’ve taken a break from music gaming. With much of our spare time used up on TV shows that are failing to live up to their potential, attending the London Film Festival and having to brave the mosh-pit-simulator that is Leicester Square, or tweeting until 2 in the morning, we’ve not spent much time on Rock Band. Even The Beatles: Rock Band — a game I’ve been going on about for a while — only got a few hours of play, partially because we’ve not had a chance to use the extra mics we bought, and partially because while it’s been fun learning more about the band, it’s been less fun playing Paul’s songs.

He seems to be a kickass bass player, but his songs are the worst kind of mawkish tripe. I mean, Hello Goodbye has nineteen actual words in it (not counting the three nonsense words at the end), repeated over and over again in combinations of varying meaning but persistent insignificance. This Spitting Image sketch once struck me as cruel, but no longer:

Luckily, with other songs, The Beatles: Rock Band has done exactly what I had hoped: given me a better understanding of the appeal of the Fab Four. The unbearable repetition of their songs on the radio during my childhood was enough to create a mental block between me and the band, but that Rock Band magic has worked again, with the interaction between the player and the song breaking down that mental barrier so that I can finally get “into” the songs to experience their beautiful structure. McCartney’s bass lines are surprisingly complex, Ringo’s drumming occasionally much stronger than myth would have have it, and the songs by Lennon and Harrison are all inspiring and complex. Simultaneously playing guitar and singing on Here Comes the Sun is guaranteed to cheer me up.

And yet we’ve let it gather dust for now, and even Rock Band itself has been played infrequently. This, despite the recent DLC addition of ten Queen songs, including Under Pressure and Somebody To Love (my two favourite Queen tracks), a Raconteurs track-pack, and The Metal by Tenacious D (previously on Guitar Hero 3 but now given full Rock Band attention). This busy-ness — plus lack of funds — means I’ve paid little attention to the forthcoming release of Activision’s DJ Hero, which is expensive, potentially time-consuming, and based on dance music. As I have little interest in dance music or culture, this indifference was inevitable, but the real killing blow was the baffling gameplay videos (here’s one)…

…and the perplexing turntable peripheral. The actual experience of using the peripheral and seeing your actions keep the song going are not adequately conveyed by the information given out thus far. The Rock Band and Guitar Hero controllers are pretty self-explanatory. Strum, hit and bellow, and the lights on the screen do the happy thing yay. In contrast, how does that turntable controller enable you to do the things on the screen? It made no sense to me. Until today.

An impulsive trip to my local branch of Game paid off nicely this morning. The turntable controller had been set-up with a demo of DJ Hero, and no one else in the shop seemed even slightly interested. Maybe it was that alienating peripheral, with its peculiar buttons and knobs. Whereas my first try at Guitar Hero 2 had been intuitive, here I had to go through a series of tutorials hosted by Grandmaster Flash which quickly explained the basics of the game with enormous enthusiasm. Following that were three easy game tracks: Marvin Gaye – “I Heard It Through The Grapevine” vs. Gorillaz – “Feel Good Inc.”, Gwen Stefani – “Hollaback Girl” vs. Rick James – “Give It To Me”, and Black Eyed Peas – “Boom Boom Pow” vs. Benny Benassi – “Satisfaction”. Either the songs got easier as I went along, or the learning curve has been worked out well, as I went from three stars on track one to four on track two and five on the last one. In Easy mode there is no cross-fading or complicated scratching. You just push the buttons when necessary and half-ass the scratching. Simple.

Well, simple-ish. The scratching is not as easy as I’d hoped. For a start you’re supposed to let go of the button as soon as the scratching symbols have passed through the active area on screen, but if you’re holding the button and using that for leverage you can’t let go without the turntable getting away from you: disastrous if another scratch symbol is coming up. The other problem is caused by physics. Scratching while holding down the green button is easy enough as it is at the edge of the circular turntable, but the blue button is nearer the center, so it’s harder to push and pull the circle around, thanks to Pi or some other geometry thing. My struggles with Blue Scratching rocked the display around enough to attract the unhappy-seeming attentions of the shop owner. This was not good: he is so grizzled and rugged that I suspect he is actually the Authentic Battle Damage version of some other guy.

Even more annoying, the cross-fader switch has three positions, but the default position in the middle is very tough to hit. There is a slight click when you get it into position, but when swiping back and forth quickly, it’s easy to go too far without feeling that tactile reminder. I suspect this is something that will become second nature in time, but on advanced levels, with rapid cross-fader spikes zipping around, there will be many points lost, and much frustration added. A stronger bit of feedback from the controller would have really helped. I would also have liked to know what the purpose of the middle “effects” button is. As far as I could tell it was there to send out the odd “ZORB!” sound when pushed. The effects dial allows you to change the effect, so for a while there I was sending out a series of ear-scritching “PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW” sounds that made the entire shop’s energy turn against me. It was much more fun during the third song, where pressing the middle button makes an androidal lady intone “Sat-is. Fack. Shun” over and over again. No one seemed to mind that as much.

Other than choosing lasers over booms, the basic tutorial didn’t give a hint as to what the effects dial does, but apparently you use this in the same way you use the Whammy Bar on a Rock Band/Guitar Hero controller, to “customise” the sound on screen. As with Rock Band and Guitar Hero, all this pointless distortion does is ruin the song, and from what I can tell from other tutorials posted on YouTube, it doesn’t even serve a purpose with charging up the “Euphoria” bar. Maybe it does and we’re not privvy to that info just yet, but the Whammy Bar at least allows you to gain more Star Power / Overdrive points if you rattle it around as hard as you can, further ruining the song you’re playing.

As for Euphoria, it doubles multipliers just like with the rock games, but it doesn’t generate the sense of satisfaction you get in the rock games. Star Power or Overdrive are triggered by the Guitar Neck Tilt Move, the Drum Fill Move, or the Eccentric Microphone Scat Singing Move, which effectively — and entertainingly — mimic the show-off actions of a typical rock douche. Triggering this score multiplying mode by just pushing a button lacks that translation of action and effect that makes Rock Band and Guitar Hero feel even more like a replication of the live music experience. That said, how could DJ Hero trigger Euphoria otherwise? Have you wave a Wii-mote style Glowstick peripheral over your head? Require you to chew on an E peripheral? There’s no easy way around it, I guess.

Though the display had a guitar controller hooked up to it for the DJ Hero/Guitar Hero mash-up game mode, there was no one around to play it with. The shop owner was too busy giving me stinkeye, and the four kids who congregated behind me to watch as I demolished Benny Benassi’s infectious monstrosity looked too scared of the flashing lights and raving avatars to join in. (It was definitely the game that scared them. Not me. Honest.) I guess that co-op mode would be a lot of fun, and would probably be the thing that tips me over into buying the game, but I note that the only other party gameplay modes are just using multiple turntables to battle against each other. That made sense back in the days when the only peripherals around were guitars, so you could have boring face-offs in Guitar Hero 3 (no amount of complicated Snapped String weaponry could make that mode any less of a failure), but here it shows up the biggest problem with DJ Hero: it might be a great solo player game, and it might be an even more entertaining turntable/guitar co-op game, but it will never be able to replicate that amazing four-player co-op that makes Rock Band the best party game in the world.

It has been proven again and again that if you get a large enough group of people into a room and start playing Rock Band at midday, you will still be going at midnight with only the occasional break to eat Pringles. DJ Hero isn’t going to have that, and it isn’t going to have that instant click of cognitive understanding that Guitar Hero and Rock Band has. Once you get going on DJ Hero, it’s enormous fun. The demo I played was way way way too short, and I’m sure I would’ve stayed there all day if I’d had the chance. It even made me tap my foot, which is a big deal for someone as dance-averse as me, no counting that Megadog/Eat Static gig I went to that very very nearly converted me to rave culture because it was so fucking out-of-the-body AWESOME to the extent that even to this day I’m convinced someone slipped me a mickey early in the night and had a right old laugh watching me stomp around the dance-floor like a malfunctioning Cyberman. However, I’m not sure that’s enough. When I win the lottery, I’ll get it. Until then, maybe I should go and practice Fat Bottomed Girls, now that I’ve paid for it an’ all.