Guitar Hero and Rock Band are, on the whole, relatively easy to pick up for first time players.  Getting used to where to put your fingers takes a little time, but the basic concept of pressing something down with one hand and strumming with your other is fairly familiar to us all.  The same, however, can’t be said for DJ Hero.  Beyond moving a hand backwards and forwards and saying ‘wikki wikki wikki’, what a DJ actually does is a mystery to the vast majority of us.  As a result, playing DJ Hero for the first time is one of the more daunting experiences in gaming.  Even as a seasoned veteran of the music rhythm genre, it took me a good hour or so to really feel confident with what I needed to be doing.

Once you get your head around the new controller and new set of symbols though, DJ Hero is a joy to play.  The turntable controller has two parts, the fully rotatable turntable itself, which incorporates three coloured buttons, and the second half which features a crossfader, effects dial, ‘euphoria button’ (DJ Hero’s version of star power) and the console’s native controls hidden under a flap at the top.  Gameplay mainly consists of moving the crossfader form one side to the other to select either or both of the two tracks, while with your other hand you press the coloured buttons to trigger tracks and samples, or holding the buttons down and moving the turntable to scratch.  The turntable itself feels well made and the action on all of the moving components feels just right.  The only real issue is with the crossfader – while it does have a notch at the centre point, it can be hard to find in the heat of the moment, making it that little bit too easy to overshoot the mark.

As you progress, advances techniques like crossfader spikes and directional scratching are introduced.  Then there is the aforementioned ‘euphoria’, earned by successfully completing highlighted sections of the song without making a mistake, the effects dial which can be used to alter the EQ of certain sections or to select samples to insert as you see fit, and rewinds that can be earned by getting long streaks of notes, which see you spinning the turntable back 360 degrees to rewind the song and replay a section of it.  It may sound complicated (probably because it is) but once you’ve got the hang of it, using the controller is probably second only to drumming when it comes to feeling in control of the music.  Even though for the most part you are still just following what’s on screen, there is still, for this reviewer at least, a feeling of connection and influence with the music that I haven’t found since Amplitude and Frequency back on the PS2.

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