Dj Hero Renegade Edition Review – Xbox 360
Activision has yet again brought us a new “Hero” series game, this time venturing away from the guitar, drums, and microphone to bring us DJ Hero. Yes another metal and plastic instrument for are already overcrowded living rooms. There are two versions of the game the regular edition and the Renegade Edition featuring Jay-Z and Eminem.
There are only 2 differences on the hardware that I’ve found so far one being the knobs on the Renegade edition are metal compared to plastic on the regular edition. Secondly the turntable is black and gold compared to black and silver. My only real complaint regarding the turn table is the cross fading mechanism. It is has 3 positions left, center and right. When sliding from right to center or vice versa there isn’t enough of a click to ensure that it is centered. I’ve often lost note streaks because of it. FreeStyleGames even thought of the lefties, you can detach the mixer and place it on the right.
One of the biggest complaints I have had with games Rock Band and Guitar Hero are the tracks. Being in my twenties the music in those games just didn’t appeal to me because I didn’t know 90 percent of the artists. This is one of the single most important reasons I love DJ Hero the set list is fantastic. You have music from Eminem, Jay-Z, N.E.R.D, 2-Pac And 50 Cent mixed by the likes of DJ AM, DJ Grandmaster Flash and DJ Jazzy Jeff. This game is loaded with star power.
Another Hero game means another controller, so half of it is the record platter that contains 3 buttons green, red and blue. The other half is the mixer that includes the cross fader, effects knob , euphoria button (star power) and system control buttons .As the familiar red and blue and as notes come down on the screen you press the button. Scratches involve holding either the green or blue button while moving the platter back or forth, but on harder difficulty you’ll have to follow onscreen arrows that indicate whether to push it forward or pull it back. When you get into the medium, hard and expert settings you add in the cross fader, which you’ll have to push left and right depending on what notes are being played during the song. Think of it this way, when the cross fader is in the middle position music from record 1 and record 2 are being blared through your speakers. Move it to the left and only record 1 is being played, move it to the right and it’s only record 2.
Beginner and easy mode are just like sound, lame and boring. For me this game started to take off once I switched to medium 5 starred all the songs and found my groove. Hard and expert is a challenge and some of the songs really do kick my ass but I’m ok with that since music in this game is incredible. You can hook up a USB microphone and throw shout out’s to your TV, it’s lame but it could be fun at a party. Next time they tried to integrate a co-op mode by having 10 songs that can also be played using a guitar. The guitar and Turntable mode sounds but I really thought it was tacked on instead of being carefully thought out. One small annoyance I have is that you cannot fail a song regardless of how bad you suck, the music will keep playing. This is great if you wanted to just kick it at a party and listen to some great tunes but it’s hard to focus on where you need to improve your skills.
You can go on line, pick a set list and battle other people, I personally didn’t enjoy this mode at all as I could never seem to win a set list.
I hope Activision takes a cue from the fine folks at Harmonix and releases weekly downloadable mash up tracks for us to play. This is only way to prolong the life of this game.
Dj Hero makes a very good debut onto console platforms but FreeStyleGames needs to make a few improvements to the hardware, co-op and potentially a lower price as some people may find the current price tag a little high. At the end of the day this is one of the best music genre games I’ve played.
read moreIt’s the middle of the month – NPD time!
This months NPD numbers are out and Sony couldn’t keep top spot in hardware sales, they did however grab the top spot in software sales.
Software
01. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (PS3) – 537,000
02. Wii Fit Plus (Wii) – 441,000
03. Borderlands (Xbox 360) – 418,000
04. Wii Sports Resort (Wii) – 314,000
05. NBA 2K10 (Xbox 360) – 311,000
06. Halo 3 ODST (Xbox 360) – 271,000
07. NBA 2K10 (PS3) – 213,000
08. Forza Motorsport 3 (Xbox 360) – 175,000
09. Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days (DS) – 169,000
10. FIFA Soccer 10 (Xbox 360) – 156,000
Hardware
- Wii – 506,900
- Nintendo DS – 457,600
- PlayStation 3 – 320,600
- Xbox 360 – 249,700
- PSP – 174,600
- PlayStation 2 – 117,800
Gran Turismo PSP Review
We all remember Gran Turismo on the Playstation 1 with its multi disk package and countless hours of fun. Fast forward to 2009 and Gran Turismo PSP is making its debut on the portable platform. This game was roughly 5 years in development and I could have waited another 6 months for it.
Well GTPSP must surely be one of the best graphical looking games running at 60 frames per second on the PSP it makes me think it’s a tech demo to show other developers what can be done on the PSP. The soundtrack is solid and quite enjoyable throughout the experience. The only let down would be the cock pit view it’s not as detailed and polished as I would have liked.
As soon as you fire up the game you’ll be glad to see the familiar user interface we’ve all came to know and love. GT has 800 cars and 35 tracks that include over 70 different variations of tracks to play. Tracks in the game include original courses, famous world circuits, city courses ,Mazda Raceway, Laguna Seca, Nurburgring Nordschleife, Tokyo Route 246, a Seattle city course and a Grand Canyon rally track. One of the annoying parts of having 800 cars is that car manufactures only sell their cars on certain days of the week meaning you need to fire up the game every day to buy that car you need. Also the cars for sale are randomized as well as I got giddy when it was Mitsubishi day to sell cars but Eclipses weren’t for sale on that day.
There are time trials, drift and something called a career mode as well as over 100 challenges to test your driving skills. Let’s start with the career mode or the lack there of one. There is not structured career mode, all you need to is select a car, track and you’re off to the races. I would have preferred that the driving challenges played some role in the career mode. Like if you beat the first 5 challenges it opens up the first set of races and in order to progress you need to beat more challenges. The lack of career mode is really the downfall for this game. The driving challenges are so deep, rich and fun I spent the most time beating all the challenges. Drift mode is your standard drift mode It doesn’t appeal to me. Time trials are always fun. There are online capabilities using Ad Hoc which always you to pick a car, track and challenge up to 4 friends to a race.
It looks great, plays like a sim racer but the lack of structure in the career mode really disappoints me. One of the main reasons I kept going back and playing it was challenges. I had a blast and I wish we could get more via downloadable content. If you love the Gran Turismo franchise and need a really good racing game to play, than this is it. Oh I forgot to mention buy all the cars you can and get a head start on the competition when Gran Turismo 5 is released on the PS3
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 – Prestige Edition Unboxing
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 – Prestige Edition Unboxing
Forza 3 Drive Your Dreams Event – Toronto
Saturday October 24th I had a chance to attend Drive Your Dreams with Forza Motorsport 3 and Xbox 360! Event located in Toronto on the Canadian National Exhibition grounds. The event consisted of checking a lot of cars, playing some Forza 3, getting your picture taken in A Ferrari F430 and going for a ride on the auto cross track.
There isn’t much more to say but check out the photos
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