According an article i saw on engadget , the new Dj Hero Renegade edition controller is priced at $199. As far as we know this controller can only be used with the game, i.e. it does not act as a midi controller. Why would i pay more to be limited solely to their remixes when i could n buy a midi controller and mess around with friends with ANY Mp3 track?



I was actually looking forward to this game but how can you justify buying a toy controller that costs almost (or more for the Renegade edition) to the real thing? I mean, you can get a Numark Total Control midi controller for about 160, and sure it could still be considered a toy by real dj's (i.e. well, some dj snobs anyway) but at least you have the ability to actually mix and produce something pretty decent.

At the moment the Wii version almost costs as much as the console itself. At any stage did Activision consider that the price was somewhat excessive? I can imagine that the game will have a further price increase when released in the UK bringing it even closer to the cost of some decent dj gear.

So with this news, and the associated artists (e.g. new black eyed peas and eminem) i'm going to have to go on a complete turnaround on my previous blog post (Plea to Konami, make me a DJ HERO!) and turn my back on this game.



While i'm doing a complete turnaround on this matter, and will look like a hypocrite. I've been thinking that i think i was wrong about a Dj Hero game being a good idea at all. I play videogames because it enables me to do something that i can't normally do in real life or feel i can't learn. I can't play guitar and i enjoyed Guitar Hero, i can't kill a medusa and i really enjoyed God of War. A game like this however, pretty much teaches you the basics of Dj-ing.



Don't get me wrong i know that Dj-ing (yeah i will continue to call it that, i know it's retarded) is a real skill and i'm not saying that you're going to be Kid Koala after finishing a remix of JayZ and Eminem on Dj Hero. But i still think this game teaches you the fundamentals of beat matching and once you've got that you've got enough to screw around and make some mixes. Furthermore, you could claim the fact that turntable controller is pretty close to the real deal it therefore gets you comfortable with a simple mixer, more so than the plastic guitar with buttons to a guitar with strings. However, this game/controller will only teach/train you the fundamentals, if you want to learn more you'll need something REAL and when the barrier of entry to the game is more or the same to the real deal why bother with the game? The closer games get to reality the more you have to question why not just try the real thing? Perhaps escapism is proportionally enjoyable to how far from reality it is. But then, by that theory Ninja Blade should be the most fun ever, right?



I can't DJ (i mean, i can't DJ well) but i do know my way around a turntable. With a barrier of entry as high as this for a video game unless i see it ridiculously cheap somewhere second hand, there is no way i'm paying that much for a plastic controller when i could be saving a few more pennies and get a real midi controller. Have fun staring at dots moving to Black Eyed Pea's 'Boom Boom Boom', you'll catch me dancing with my friends to a hand mixed version of "Just like a Mini Mall".


Fleamarket. Montgomery.


p.s. how do i embed youtube videos?