Ripten Review: DJ Hero 2 (Xbox 360)

Last year, Activision released DJ Hero, a new competitor in the music game genre. DJ Hero took many by surprise, introducing both a different style of music game and a new way to interact. DJ Hero 2 takes some great songs, mashes them together and allows you to tap, scratch and crossfade along with custom tailored songs. The game brings the full experience of being a club DJ to gamers. That experience translates perfectly into the sequel, and FreeStyleGames has gone the extra step in taking that experience one notch further. DJ Hero 2 highly improves on its predecessor, offering an even better collection of songs, new gameplay mechanics, more streamlined interface, and an expanded online mode.

At it’s core, DJ Hero 2‘s gameplay remains the same. Using the turntable peripheral, you play to a song that is a mix of two different tracks. You tap buttons, crossfade between tracks, and hold buttons while moving the platter to scratch. As you move up the difficulty curve, you will be expected to not only hit more notes, but perform the exact up and down motions as well as the speed of the turntable scratches. The game’s music has taken somewhat of a different direction, focusing more on pop, hip-hop, rap and electronica. The music is still excellently combined and more energetic than ever. DJ Hero 2 consists of mixes from plenty of artists including Eminem, Daft Punk, Chamillionaire, Dr. Dre, Chemical Brothers, Kanye West, Metallica, Lady Gaga, and Rihanna. Most of the music is not something I normally listen to but DJ Hero 2 is full of such catchy, wonderfully crafted mashups, I found myself humming them outside of the game.

DJ Hero 2 takes the feeling of user interaction in the creation of the mixes and builds upon it. The game focuses on giving you some creative control in specific sections of each mix. Freestyle scratch sections allow you to scratch in any direction and speed to a sample of the song, giving you the freedom to freestyle that section any way you choose. You can scratch as fast as you’d like, or keep it slow for a nice breakdown section. Freestyle crossfade sections allow you to be even more creative, giving you full control of the sound balance between the two mixed tracks. Stick to one side to hear the beat or lyrics of one song, bounce back and forth between key moments of songs, or eliminate a track completely for a moment. These freestyle sections are what make DJ Hero 2 great and truly allows you to leave your own mark on the tracks. Although, if you don’t know a lot of the songs, your mix may sound pretty lame. Even if you are messing up on a hard song, it will still sound pretty good. With someone just listening in, they wouldn’t be able to tell the difference since all of the songs are full of quick stops and fade in and out. It’s nice to not be penalized by your mistakes with a crude “ERRRR” sound like Guitar Hero and Rock Band.

There are a few other gameplay tweaks that enrich the DJ Hero 2 experience. Some notes must be held providing an extra challenge while holding one note down and trying to tap others. DJ Hero 2 ditches the old sound effect samples for freestyle red notes. Now, each song has samples tailored to each section of the song. Each freestyle red section even has multiple samples in each line. For example, on a Jackson 5 song, ABC, each time you tap the red button you will get an A, B, and a C respectively. You can make the song spit out a quick ABC or a slow and steady A–B–C. These small choices you make while playing each song keep it sounding slightly different each time and this small user input is what makes DJ Hero 2 put really immersive.

You can play through most of the mixes in DJ Hero 2‘s career mode, Empire, which lets you unlock songs for Quickplay  and unlock new outfits, headphones and decks for your in-game DJ. Eventually, you will unlock the ability to use your avatar, which is what I chose. Empire mode starts off with some small customization options. You can name your club, but only from a stock set of choices. There is no character creator that has become standard in music games. You will be choosing from a few DJs with set names and few options until unlocked. It’s a shame FreeStyle Games didn’t take the existing Guitar Hero character creator and import into DJ Hero 2.

Most sets in Empire mode consist of up to four songs. In a few cases, you will play a set strung together as a Megamix, giving more of a proper club DJ feeling. Serving as checkpoints between every few setlists, DJ battles will put you against other DJs testing your ability to outperform them. You will face DJs that are real and fictional, including the likenesses of Deadmau5, Tiesto, and David Guetta.

Once the songs are unlocked from Empire Mode, you have the option to play them again in Quickplay, allowing you to see how many stars you received on songs, improve your scores and issue challenges to people on your friends list. Party Play is exactly how it sounds and gives a casual approach to the experience. It offers up to 3 people to play, up to 2 DJs and one vocalist. Players can drop-in and drop-out at will, even mid-song. The mode lends itself very well to a party situation, especially since the music has a focus on club and party music. Playing with another DJ is a really cool experience, as you both battle for the high score, but both leaving your impressions on the songs. Singing has never been my forte, but I found it even less fun than I normally do in music games. Even if you know the songs, you won’t be familiar with the way they are mashed up and this will throw you off tremendously. Singing to lyrics that are being scratched is really annoying and provides a goofy experience. One thing I noticed, was that guitar parts have been cut from the game. Now longer is it an option to play the instrument while others sign and DJ, which is a shame since there is a Metallica song in the game.

Although most of the game’s features focus on a more casual style of gameplay, the new online competitive modes give a fully fledged hardcore mode. These modes include score battles, section-by-section comparison, and holding a streak longer than your competition. During the streak battle, you can press the Euphoria (DJ Hero’s Star Power) to bank your streak. Each player starts off with three and can only earn more by perfecting Euphoria-earning sections.

A full experience system has been added and gives experience based upon win and loss and will display your rank. The online mode takes some tiny features from Call of Duty, allowing you to earn call tags and icons depending on your wins, streaks and times you have tapped, scratched and crossfaded. On top of that DJ Hero 2 has what they call Power Decks. These decks act as your perk and will give you specials such as going up to a X5 multiplayer versus the usual X4, longer Euphoria, and more points for scratches and taps. My only gripe with the online is difficulty settings. On all of the default settings, all difficulty levels can play against each other. If you are playing Expert versus Easy or Medium, the Expert player has potential to score more with more mistakes because of the extra notes. The problem lies when an Expert player versus a Hard difficulty player. Each player has the same amount of taps and scratches, but the Hard player doesn’t have to hit the exact scratches, meaning they can score more due to the decrease in difficulty and will almost always beat an Expert player (unless you are a god amongst men.) This forces everyone to play on Hard mode and is the current trend with people currently playing.

DJ Hero 2 is offered as a stand-alone game ($59.99) for previous adopters, a single turntable with software ($99.99) or a party pack which includes two turntables, software and a microphone ($149.99). The cost may seem high to newcomers, but if you have the slightest interest in music games, DJ Hero 2 justifies its price tag. Most of the 83 mixes are ridiculously fun to play, not to mention listen to outside of the game. DJ Hero 2 really brings the club DJ experience to you with its intuitive gameplay mechanics. The game gives you a real connection to these songs, giving you different options on the sound of the mix and how to play them. The game is full of so many options, that DJ Hero 2 lends itself well to hardcore and casual gamers. The game applies to both demographics and allows them to play exactly how they’d like. If you find yourself having fun while playing other music genre titles, you owe it to yourself to check out DJ Hero 2 and prepare to be electrified by how much fun the experience is.

+ Excellent imitation of becoming a real club DJ
+ Awesome mixes of songs even if you don’t normally listen to these artists
+ Party mode makes for great background music and entertainment for party atmosphere
+ Fleshed out online features
- No character creation, little customization
- Playing on Expert versus Medium online is unbalanced

DJ Hero 2 was developed by FreeStyle Games and published by Activision for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii. The game released in the United States on October 19th, 2010 with a retail price of $59.99 for the standalone disc, $99.99 for a controller + software and $149.99 for the 2 controllers + microphone bundle. The copy used in this review was for the Xbox 360 and given to us by Activision  for review consideration. Empire mode was played through completion, 5 starring everything Expert and at least ten matches were played online before writing this review. Total play time was around 12 hours.