DJ HERO for the PS3 Review: You're the DJ Hero

In the Guitar Hero tradition comes DJ Hero - but it’s better. Much better. Rhythm games where you press buttons in time with the music are good and nobody will argue against their success or entertainment factor. But what's missing is a feeling of control - of being able to do more than just pressing a digit against a button on “command.”

DJ Hero blows that out of the water by altering the playing field to make the turntable king of the walk. This “controller” lets you do more than just press buttons in time with the tunes; you’re scratching the music and sliding the beats as the music blares (specially prepped to handle all this of course).

The tutorials at the front end will get you up and running fast. That’s not to say you’ll be so skilled, just that you’ll know what to do regardless of whether you’re 10, 20 or 50. Reflexes rule as they do in other rhythm games of course, but at least there’s an Easy level to choose from - if you don’t care that online “friends” will laugh at you.

Setup is simple enough and a few ‘AA’s take care of powering the controller - but before we get to that let’s talk about where to place the controller. The highfaluting version includes a stand that holds the turntable for you, but those with the basic model (like me) will have to make do putting it on a table or some flat surface. In the bedroom bedroom that means the bed which works good enough but out in the living room with my projector screen (100 inches of joyous big picture) sitting on the couch with the controller isn’t a good solution.

Not that my lap is that tiny or the controller that big - more to the point is that you can get a bit too excited during game play and the last thing you want is for the Turntable to go flying off your lap - wireless or not.

There’s three colored buttons to press on the turntable, and moving it “scratches” the music. There’s also a full scale controller attached to the turntable for working through the menus - the bottom area having a slider for switching between tracks of music as well asa knob for knocking off additional effects. Plus a nice fat “Euphoria” button for catching bonus points.