Okay, I admit: DJ Hero is harder than it looks

While I run the risk of sounding like an ass, I always thought FreeStyleGames’ DJ Hero looked kind of… easy.

Make no mistake, since I first saw the game in action it always looked like it would be a lot of fun. The soundtrack promised to be killer, and based on what I had heard, I was sure it was going to deliver. But despite the new controller and my unfamiliarity with an actual turntable, watching the game being played on the most difficult levels never seemed all that difficult at all, actually. 

About a month ago, Activision finally let me get my hands on the fader and platter. Turns out, I was wrong. DJ Hero is harder than it looks. 

[Dark iPhone photo courtesy of MTV Multiplayer’s Russ Frushtick.]

Before I even touched the controller, the very concept of the game was already incredibly familiar to me, as I’m sure it is to anyone who’s played a rhythm game in the past 10 years. Three colored notes move down a vinyl note highway — green, red, and blue. Buttons that correspond to these colors are on the controllers’ “platter,” probably better recognized by most as the turntable proper. You know, where people used to put their music before the invention of mp3 players.

As the notes approach the bottom of the screen, you’re simply tasked to hit the proper button at the right time. The middle button (red) triggers samples; the green and the blue buttons represent the two mixed tracks. (Each of DJ Hero’s 94 songs are original mixes of two popular tracks.) Scratch sections appear on the green and blue tracks as well; you simply hold the button, and move the platter back and forth.

Keeping an eye on the highway, you’ll see “lanes” that the green and blue tracks follow. This is where it gets slightly more complicated. As the the green lane moves out to the left, you’ll move the controller’s fader to the left to nail that section. As the green lane moves out to the right, you’ll move the fader out to the right.

Got it? Good. It sounds complicated when explained, but seeing someone play in person — at least someone who knows what they’re doing, like FreeStyleGames’ Jamie Jackson — it makes quite a bit more sense. 

I had seen demos of the game numerous times, and was sure I wouldn’t have a problem getting into a song. So I stepped up to controller in front of a small crowd of journalists and Activision employees, and I gave it my best shot. 

When Jackson asked me if I had ever played before, I told him I hadn’t, but had seen it being played enough times that I felt like an old pro. I selected a mix I had heard before — Black Eyed Peas’ “Boom Boom Pow” vs. Benni Benassi’s “Satisfaction” — and Jackson suggested I start on the easy level. I laughed at such a ridiculous idea.

“Isn’t that, uh, a little easy?”

After giving me a funny look, he conceded that it might be a bit simple, and let me select “Medium.” A few things to understand — I have a pretty good sense of rhythm, as well as a pretty lengthy (yet self-taught) musical background. So being able to hit the notes at the right time along with the music wasn’t an issue. The fader wasn’t much of a problem either, even though operating it with one hand while tapping buttons with the other is a bit like patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time.

So I was doing okay. Jackson watched over me as I played, encouraging me as he nodded his head to the beat.

“You’re doing good. Nice. Perfect. Great,” he said.

But unlike when Jackson plays — he rocks back and forth, sometimes throwing his hand up in the air — I was stiff. Lifeless. The level of concentration it was taking to push through this mix on Medium (what real gamer plays on Medium?) was astonishing. The feel of the turntable under my fingers was unlike anything I had experienced. Before picking up a plastic instrument to play Guitar Hero or pounding the drums in Rock Band, I had at least had experience with their real life instrument counterparts. 

Because that wasn’t the case with a turntable, DJ Hero felt oddly foreign to me. Particularly the platter, I felt completely out of control when scratching the turntable, sometimes loosing my fingering or letting it spin too far. (You can move the platter a full 360 degrees.) The final results of my Black Eyed Peas/Benni Benassi mash-up were okay — somewhere in the 80% range. Not bad for my first go. But not great, either. 

So I admit it — while I thought that I’d easily be able to pick up DJ Hero and fly through songs on the more difficult levels, I was wrong. But I had enough fun trying, even on an easier difficult, that I’m willing to work at it when the game ships in October 27. I hope to look at cool as Jamie Jackson when I play by November.

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Six mixes you didn’t know were tracks in DJ Hero:

• 50 Cent “Disco Inferno” vs. InDeep – “Last Night a D.J. Saved My Life”
• Blondie – “Atomic” vs. Gorillaz “Feel Good Inc.”
• Jurassic 5 “Jayou” vs. billy Squier “Big Beat”
• M.I.A. – “Paper Planes” vs. Wale “Lookin’ At Me”
• Tears for Fears – “Shout” vs. DJ Shadow feat. Mos Def “Six Day (Remix)”
• Cypress Hill – “Insane in the Brain” vs. David McCallum “The Edge”