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Jam Sessions "Review": Your GUIDE to a (acoustic) guitar fan's tool
BlindsideDork | 12:44 PM on 09.13.2007 11 comments


FULL ON SUCK! Worse than a ex-"whore" who lies alot with tons of excuses! I had this big write up for this game written up and almost finished and then Internet Explorer decides that I want to go back instead of staying on the page and I lose it all! All that hard work down the drain. How does this affect you? My "review" will be TWICE as short and not as indepth.




This "game" is best described as Electroplankton with guitars and a bit more depth. There is no finish or conclusion. When you finish a song, you just get a check showing you finished it. No points, no rating, no review, no nothing. All the extras are already present at the beginning of the game.

The game starts off with what they call Tutorial, I call it Tutorial #1. It tells you the basics. Then you are presented with the main menu which has Tutorial, Warm Up, Songs, and Free Play. Immediately go to Warm Up if it is your first time. It will explain how to strum and how things go down (like a whore). At the end it will tell you when you learn a song you can spice it up by doing your own thing?




Now you are ready for Songs. When you pick it and then your song, it shows you the chords given to you to play the song (you can't change them). The next screen you get to is pretty much blank. Bottom has the strum line and the top just has blue bars and random letters. There is NO WAY a beginner could play from this. Well here is how you play the game...


- At the bottom of the screen there is a "+" and you should press it.

- It opens an options screen with Navigation (to get back to the MAIN MENU), Songs, Demos, Guides, Masks, Recordings, and Options. Press GUIDES.

- It will take you to a screen with three choices: Use position marks, Use chord markers (something like that), Use metronome. At LEAST make sure the middle one/Use chord marks. This will show you what, when, and how to strum during the song.


There, now when you look at the screen up above it shows you how to play the song. Some songs have demos but that is just to give you a feel of the song. But regardless you can play the game now with little to no hitch.




Now for the extras...you can customize your background and change your strum line. These were the two biggest things to me that I saw and can be found under MASKS. There is also Effects. There are seven effect tabs (8 if you count none) and each tab can hold up to TWO effects. Each one can have it's mix/tone/etc adjusted to your liking. So yes, you can play Coldplay's Yellow, Fray's "Over My Head" or even Avril's "I'm With You" with a distorted guitar if you want.

Yeah about the songs...they probably won't please most people here on Dtoid, not me. But some of the tracks are by Rascal Flatts, Jimmi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, Blind Melon, Fray, Coldplay, Avril, and others. What is up with Avril? It seems she is in just about every other Nintendo music game around! Is her husband pimping her out to Nintendo every year? I bet I could name a girl who would do that...anyways back to the tracks! The tracks seem to be in no set order. It is like they are thrown in there. You would think it would be from easiest to hardest but it isn't. So you just have got to pick and choose and hope it isn't too hard?

My first songs I played "successfully" were Over My Head and Yellow...it is remarkable how pop songs of today are so easy to play and require few chords if this is actually a close representation. Speaking of "successful" this thing isn't exactly accurate. As I said before with this "spicing up," it pretty much means that you don't have to get every note right to complete a song. You could randomly strung a bunch of times and go to the next one and it won't notice really notice. Aslong as you are CLOSE to it you are good...




Lastly we have Free Mode. Here you can pick up to 16 different chords and strum away to your liking. How the 16 chords work is every direction on the D-Pad (8) counts as a chord and you have to HOLD the shoulder button to get the others. Yes, I said hold. Not sure if you can switch that to a toggle but right off the bat you can't. This mode is also where the game will get its most replay value. I guess the songs are suppose to teach you how to play and then you make up your own stuff in Free Mode. The game supports three types of audio outputs and one of them is for "performances" and since the game supports the micrphone...well you can sing and pretend you have an acoustic guitar to play with, an audience who isn't emo, and a soul. But seriously...if you get good at it, might be easy way to woo a girl, unless she is a whore who claims she isn't easy but wants to do everyone when she first meets them.......sorry, where was I?

So along with crying...errr] playing those songs you can record them. This can be done in Free Mode or not. This is pretty nifty actually, especially for musicians. You could have an idea for a riff and just pull out the game, get the chords and then record a sample for later. I mean who carries their guitar and recording device everywhere they go?

As you can see from the lack of scores and accuracy rating this is not a game. It is more of a tool like Electroplankton is which is not a bad thing. Jam Sessions is also more of an extremely laid back teacher. Like I said, it could come in handy at some point...

It seems I have said many negative things here (about the game, not whore[s]). But there are no regrets in picking up this $29.99 title (especially when you have a $25 gift card). It can be fun and different than other titles you may have. And for big music fans or suckers of package deals, if you can wait a few months you can pick up the bundle at EB Games/GameStop that includes the game and an amp. Got to push out the tunes somehow at the coffee shop, right?


My Rating: 8 - It has got replay value for musicians or people interested in "learning guitar"...otherwise don't pick it up!









Whore.



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11 comments | showing # 1 to 11

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Butmac's Destructoid Blog
Awesome, I've been wanting to hear if this game was a flop or not. Thanks
V3r1n's Destructoid Blog
Is that chick in the bottom picture vomiting upside down onto a flower pot? that's what i see, and its hardcore... sweet review btw
BlindsideDork's Destructoid Blog
I think she is holding a slice of pizza and that is cheese...yeah.
Justice's Destructoid Blog
Nice review dude!
Mantra's Destructoid Blog
Great review, next time use Firefox. :-P

By the way you can switch the shoulder button to toggle. Just press the plus button, go into Options/Settings and press the tab that's second to the right.
BlindsideDork's Destructoid Blog
I would do Firefox but work has this policy against installing new stuff.

Ah....I guess it probably would let you do that Mantra.
Cowzilla3's Destructoid Blog
Solid, if i was interested or able to play music I'd think this would be amazing for me.
LostCrichton's Destructoid Blog
I picked up a coy of this yesterday and have been having fun with it. I like it so far.
balth's Destructoid Blog
Sweet thanks for the review man!

Nice review, sorry you lost your first draft.
Necros's Destructoid Blog
Split between this being an awesome thing to buy and this being something I have no use for.
Necros's Destructoid Blog
Split between this being an awesome thing to buy and this being something I have no use for.


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