During a demo today at E3, Freestyle Games busted out DJ Hero‘s “DJ vs. Guitar” mode, giving us a look at the odd-sounding mode for the first time.
It is exactly what it sounds like — a battle in which a DJ (using the DJ Hero turntable controller) goes head to head against a player using any compatible guitar peripheral. The song we saw was a mash-up between Foo Fighter’s “Monkey Wrench” (on guitar) and The Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage.” The mix itself (one of 10 available for the mode) was underwhelming, a forced mash-up between the two songs that the power of either track.
The turntablist played and mixed both tracks, with the guitarist simply playing along with a standard-looking Guitar Hero track. From what we were told, the track charting for the guitar is lifted directly from Guitar Hero as well. Good news, though — some of the songs in this mode will only be found in DJ Hero, although no specifics were mentioned.
The concept on paper is a good one, giving players the opportunity to drag their guitar peripherals out of the closet and get a friend involved. But it call comes down to how the guitar jives in a mix, and based on what we saw, we’re not sold. Yet. With nine other tracks available for the mode (and potentially more via downloadable content), we’ll try to keep an open mind.
