DJ Hero

It wasn't really an eventful weekend to start our week off. Most of the time we worked on Sam's 40th birthday party decorations to the theme of Trade. Otherwise it was a visit to Croydon for a few hundred lighter off. We finally gave in and bought it. After a visit to a friends and a journey of furniture tedium, we spent our Nectar points on DJ Hero. The deal struck between us was to decorate through the day then DJ at night.


The mock DJ deck and mixer is a great bit of kit with a nifty cross-fader and Technics like platter. When you are scratching you have to hold the wheel of steel with the coloured button and thumb to get the best action. When you have to do rewind/spin-backs its also better to hold down the coloured button again to wind it round one revolution otherwise it will just spin out of control.

The tutorial is very easy to follow and master whilst the beginner and easy levels are also simple and fun to play. It's when you get to the medium level that the faster tracks combine the cross-fader and scratching together it all gets a bit much especially when the cross-fader needs to be either half the whole way across and you get it wrong. If you can do the belly-rub and head pat trick you'll have no problem.

Choose of tunes are quite good. They've tried to suit all dance and hip-hop tastes though would appreciate less Rhianna and more House and Techno. Hopefully future download packs will improve that. Personally, the amount of Daft Punk tracks are spoiling us rotten even if you have to play it for 6-8 hours to unlock them all including their animated robot versions. Samples are quite good and are unlockable every so often. I also like the effects rotatable button to drop the bass/mid/treble.

The graphics are slick with a lot of options to customise your chosen DJ, their look, their decks and the location to DJ. All these are unlocked as you play through the game. Some of the animation will look a little odd as the dance crowd dance to a different beat as an observer but you won't really notice that as the DJ as you concentrate on the button tapping, cross-fades, stabbing, samples that are indicated on the record stream.