Don’t expect to see too many posts like this from us, but we decided that this was one game which we had to get our hands on. Published by Activision (the same company behind Guitar Hero), and with support from such legends as DJ Shadow, Z-Trip, DJ AM (RIP), Grandmaster Flash and Daft Punk, this game garnered quite a bit of attention from both the DJ and gaming communities. I finally had enough time to get my hands on the game, and was pretty impressed.

Similar to the Guitar Hero series, the game is based around a unique controller, modeled after a a turntable and mixer. For anyone who’s played Guitar Hero or Rock Band, the concept will be easy to grasp. Essentially there are three streams which correspond to three buttons of the same color. An icon in a stream will call for the player to tap the correct button in beat or “scratch” by moving the platter back and forth. At harder levels of difficulty, the game will also call for use of the crossfader, or filter. The gameplay is simple enough for anyone to get a hang of, with the “hard” and “expert” levels offering a challenge to even the most hardcore of gamers. Everyone who I had try the game got pretty hooked, wanting to do several mixes in a row.

The game gives you a score based on your performance with a virtual crowd also giving you feedback. At certain points, you can use the “euphoria” or “rewind” power-ups to push the crowd over the edge. The developers really did a great job at creating a diverse number of venues, ranging from a grimy basement to a level that seems to be modeled on the main stage at Hard Festival. I really appreciate that they made crowd response and interaction an important part of the game. Without ever looking at the score, you can tell how well someone is doing based upon the virtual heads approval, or disapproval.

Gameplay is one thing, but obviously what was going to make or break this game was the soundtrack, and I think they did a pretty great job. The game’s soundtrack is comprised of 93 unique “mixes” (essentially mash-ups) of two tracks, from a selection of over 100 tracks. The tracks range from artists such as Justice and Dizzee Rascal to current Top-40 hits as well as time tested dancefloor classics. An in-house remix team, is responsible for a portion of the mixes, with the rest coming from established artists like DJ AM, Scratch Perverts, Grandmaster Flash, Daft Punk and more. While the in-house team does a good job on most of the “mixes”, its the guest “mixes” which really stand out and add something special to the game. Each of the guest “mixes” really does a great job at capturing a little bit of the essence of their live sets. If you ever wanted to feel like Grandmaster Flash tearing up the ones and twos, and you lack the natural talent or work ethic to get you there, this is your chance!

If you were on the fence about this game, I’d definitely give it a shot. I had a number of people over to test out the game, ranging from other DJs to people who view DJing as some sort of magical sorcery. Everyone was able to enjoy the game and get into it. While it doesn’t do a perfect job at recreating the “DJ experience,” it gets about as close as a video game can get.