Last year’s DJ Hero was a breath of fresh air for the rhythm game genre. Bringing turntablism/electronic/hip-hop into the mix widened the audience with a whole new way to play music games. Activision didn’t throw many wrenches into mix for DJ Hero 2, but polished the game and tweaked little areas to make it even more fun. With an amazing setlist, DJ Hero 2 is a much better game than the already very good original and is well worth the purchase for any music fans out there.
Two of the biggest criticisms of last year’s DJ Hero were the weird samples (red button taps) like Flava Flav yelling out “YEEEAAAHHHH BOOOOYYYYYEEEE” that made no sense in the context of the song and the lack of adding a personal touch to each of the mixes. Both have been corrected this year. Samples are now song and sequence specific, so they fit much better into the overall feel of the mix. You can tap them out in your own style as before, which makes the mix feel more of your own. Couple with that freestyle scratching and cross-fading and you can really make the mix sound how you want. Even if you aren’t a good DJ in real life, you won’t end up making the mix sound horrible, which is a testament to the care put into the game by the development team at FreeStyleGames. But if you can match your scratching and crossfading with the beat, your customized remixes will sound that much better.
Empire Mode replaces Career mode, but it’s essentially the same type of play as you progress your DJ from small clubs to world domination. You can unlock new clothes, headphones and decks to use, although you’ll rarely see them while paying attention to the spinning vinyl. Power Decks are unlockable as you keep playing through to give boosts such as Euphoria lasting longer. I’m not the biggest fan of the power decks and the augmented boosts, but I’m sure a lot of you out there will enjoy the extra points you can gain from each song. Online play works well with DJ battles and local multiplayer with two turntables and a microphone is a welcome addition as opposed to the guitar mixes from last year. Banging out the beats with two other friends locally is a hell of a lot of fun.
There’s very little to say bad about DJ Hero 2. You cannot export on-disc songs from the first game, which was promised back to E3. I had hoped to create a massive library to play in a single game, but it seems Activision wasn’t able to work out the licensing deals to allow exporting the tracks. Maybe down the line if we’re lucky. The other small gripe I have is after finishing a Quickplay mix or setlist, you’re dropped back to the main menu instead of the song selection screen. This could easily be patched, so hopefully Activision will make that Quickplay change to streamline the experience.
DJ Hero 2 isn’t a leap forward, but it’s an extremely polished sequel that is well worth your purchase. If you already have a turntable controller, you’re all set to just grab the game. If not, you can pick up single turntable packs or party packs with two turntables and a microphone. Whichever way you go about it, buying DJ Hero 2 should be a priority. This is a game I’ll no doubt be playing for the next year. You should do the same. Now if only Activision would release the soundtrack as MP3 downloads…
[A copy of the game with turntable controllers and microphone was provided by the publisher for review purposes.]
