It’s obviously not the full song, and to be honest it’s not likely to be the best one, but damn it, it’s Daft Punk, and it’s new. Even beside the fact that the game is looking surprisingly entertaining, DJ Hero is taunting Daft Punk fans everywhere into wanting the game- new tracks, heavy focus, even silly things like the Alive 2007 stage.

Anyone remember this post I made back in May? In it, I made threats to attack Activision if Daft Punk wasn’t in the game(I was joking, Mr. Activision lawyer). Obviously, they took this the way I meant them to take it and promptly added them into the game, making me and many others very cheerful about it. No need to thank me, honestly. Anyone would have done the same thing.

When DJ Hero was first hinted at a year ago, I was kind of looking forward to it. I assumed it be a series of scratching to a bunch of hip-hop remixes, but I was completely wrong. Of course, you’ve already heard me complaing about the songs mixed for the game, but seeing as how we now have the first official footage of a song on the highest difficulty in the game, I feel like I can give a somewhat solid impression on the game.

It looks kind of boring.

Now, I say looks because I haven’t gotten any hands on time with the game yet, but as soon as I do, I plan to post more impressions here. But the fact of the matter is that the game looks like it moves very slowly. I’m sure this isn’t the case, since working the controller must be much more difficult than it looks here, but all I have is the 30 seconds of footage to go off of as of now.

The song above is “KRS-1’s Jack of Spades (DJ Shadow Mix) vs David Bowie’s Lets Dance” and the mix isn’t too bad.

Look, this isn’t a music blog. I have no intentions of telling you what music is good and what music is bad, but there are just some artists that have established themselves well enough to be proclaimed universally as good. Of course, it’s easy to ruin their songs- just mash them up with songs people have never heard, or have no intention of ever hearing again. I assume this is the premise for DJ Hero, because with all my cynicism, I don’t think that the partial setlist Game Informer recently revealed could turn out well.

At all.

But aside from a set list of crazy mash-ups, Game Informer also stated that the controller we saw earlier isn’t the entire thing. There’s also a separate component, with a cross fader, effects dial, and a “Euphoria” (star power) button. While it might seem simple, Kotaku reports that the simplicity comes from the fact that the cross fader also has to be in the right position when tapping the buttons, and arrows that tell you which way to scratch. If you’re sick of my opinion on the game, you can hit the jump for hte partial setlist, and form your own opinion. Read more…

It seems nowadays that everytime I write up a post, I end up complaining about Activision and their cash cow known colloquially as Guitar Hero- and this post will unfortunately be no different. Because today, Activision announced three, yes three, more games for the Guitar Hero franchise, all of which are coming out this year.

Though there were already 4 confirmed Guitar Hero games in the works for 2009 alone, Activision today confirmed that three more ____ Hero games would be released this fall, namely Band Hero, Guitar Hero V, and DJ Hero. The idea of DJ Hero was leaked a while ago, but Guitar Hero V and Band Hero are news as far as news goes.

According to the press release, Guitar Hero: Van Halen will feature Van Halen’s greatest hits, along with some songs from other artists, selected by Van Halen themselves. Band Hero will be the franchise’s first E10+ game, and will be focused more on a “family-friendly experience”, and DJ Hero will be a scratching game with a turntable controller (as you see above) with which you can remix songs in the game. DJ Hero seems the most interesting to me, but I’d have to see it myself before making any judgement.

Hit the jump for the press release, straight from the horse’s Activision’s mouth. Read more…

What you see before you is one of two renderings posted by DJHero on Twitter. Don’t worry, they’ve also been confirmed by Activision by way of a press release, in case you had any suspicions that the Twitter account might be false. They’re not really a surprising design; the only think that strikes me is the lack of yellow and orange buttons (unless they’re on another unit, or on the side). Now what remains for the game is the song list- if there’s no Daft Punk, I’ll go right to Activision HQ and punch every single person there.

Actually, I’ll do something that’ll hurt them even more. I’ll complain on the internet. They’ll never survive that!

In an interview with Joystiq, Brian Bright, project director of Guitar Hero: World Tour, confirmed that Activision are working on DJ Hero. From Joystiq:

JS: Didn’t you say you’re already working on another music game?

BB: Activision’s doing a DJ Hero game, and I can’t comment on what we’re doing. But… we’re working on the future and next gen.

After some convincing rumours, it’s good to hear that the market will eventually have music games that don’t involve instruments from rock bands. It’s certainly a good descision for Activision; surely the only market that hasn’t been taken over by Guitar Hero is those people who don’t enjoy rock music? With DJ Hero, Activision will most likely become richer than Richie Rich on payday who has also just found a $700 billion cheque on the street. Anyway, what do you think? Good or bad idea? Do people want to keep buying more plastic instruments? Let us know in the comments.

Activision look to be expanding their current collection of video games which use plastic instrument peripherals with their recent filing for a patent on the name DJ Hero.
Read more…