DJ Hero got me very annoyed, not quite DJ Katy levels of annoyance but almost. How dare they turn something as cool as DJing in to a rhythm action game and include Vanilla Ice on the track listing.
Just. Not. Cool.
Fortunately Freestyle Games seemed to have listened to feedback and DJ Hero 2 adds a load of new features and more importantly, tunes that you would actually hear DJs play in a club. I spoke to Jamie Jackson, Creative Director at Freestyle Games to find out more.
TC: How is DJ Hero 2 different to DJ Hero 1?
JJ: The next step is we have been focusing on the social aspect, bringing more people in to the living room and online so we have focused a lot of the mixes for two turntables and a microphone. All of the lyrics are now marked up and you can sing or rap, depending on what kind of lyric is in the track. We’ve also brought in some new multiplayer modes such as head to head and battle modes.
TC: DJ Hero 1 featured some big name DJs and rappers, who have you got on board this time?
JJ: Well we have some big names on board but the only one I can reveal right now is now is DeadMau5.
TC: Who we knew about anyway…
JJ: Well there you go… Wait, how did you know?
TC: One of our readers spotted a picture on DeadMau5 twitter feed of the mouse head and the DJ Hero 2 logo.
JJ: No!
TC: Yup.
JJ: Damn, there goes my big reveal! Well, he is in the game, the other DJs will be revealed later this year.
TC: Are they mainly American artists or do we get some UK DJs this time?
JJ: They are… worldwide.
TC: The track listing in DJ Hero 1 was eclectic, shall we say. I noticed during your earlier presentation you had tracks from Armin Van Burren and The Chemical Brothers, are there going to be more European acts and DJs in the game this time? There was a lot of rap and hip hop in the last game.
JJ: Yeah I think that is a fair comment, it was skewed a little heavily on the rap. This time the game is balanced out so to answer your question, yes there are more dance acts, more European acts. The game will feature a balance of rap, hip hop, dance and pop.
TC: Will it be mainstream dance or will you be delving in to trance, Drum n Bass and other genres?
JJ: Definitely, there some D’n’B in DJ hero 2, some real cut and past stuff in the battle mixes, some techno, electro, we are trying to get a broad range in.
TC: So Deadmaus5 is in the game, how exactly is he involved?
JJ: He has created some of the mixes and supplied tunes and his character of course – we have motion captured him to create the animations. We have all his latest tunes in the game.
TC: What I was trying to get at is does he create the mixes for the game or do your team create the mixes for him?
JJ: It’s kind of a different level of involvement for each DJ, there is no hard and fast rule. Sometimes DJs give us mixes and the boys in music production work with the DJs to create something that will work within the game. With others, such a DJ Shadow, he does everything himself. I couldn’t tell you what levels we got to with DeadMau5.
TC: Can we expect more DLC? Guitar Hero gets news tracks every week; DJ Hero rarely gets DLC.
JJ: Were going to talk about DLC nearer the launch, we are in a slightly different position to Guitar Hero in that we don’t just license tracks, we actually heave to create mixes. But yes, we hope to support DJ Hero 2 with a load of DLC.
TC: You showed off a few new features in the demo including the new freestyle scratching, that was very cool..
JJ: Yeah we’ve always wanted to do some freestyle elements ever since we had the idea of DJ but it just was not at a good enough level for DJ 1 and we didn’t want to put too much in the first game to overwhelm the player. All the freestyle stuff is allowing you to manipulate and play around with parts of the music as much as you like.
We’ve got freestyle scratch in which you can scratch parts of he track and when you let go of the button it will retrigger the sample so you can scratch again. We’ve got an enhanced version of the sample so this s time you are triggering actual effects from the song rather than layering in predefined samples over the top, so it’s a bit more connected and more authentic.
The effects dial this time,  rather just a pitch up pitch down, has changed and we’ve got a whole series of peer to peer effects which are designed for that part of that track so whatever you do will fit neatly in the track rather than you breaking the track musically.
The other big new one is the freestyle cross fade in which you have both records playing and you can cut between each record as you like. We give you a visual cue to aim for what will sound cool.
TC: So that’s about as close to ‘proper’ DJing then as you could probably get, as you can cut between two tracks with visual element replacing the monitor speaker a real DJ would use?
JJ: Yeah I guess so. We’ve been very careful to make sure the game is not a simulation. If we made it a simulation then we got it wrong, it’s still a game, it has to be fun.
TC: Anything new for online?
JJ: We’ve got a much more robust online interface now that’s more in line with something such as Call Of Duty in terms of medals and unlocks. You can see how good your opponent is straight away.
TC: Finally, what is your favourite track in the game?
JJ: Well as you know we haven’t released a full track listing but I can tell you its two Chemical Brothers tracks mixed together.
End of Interview
From what I have seen DJ Hero 2 ‘fixes’ everything that I disliked with DJ Hero 1. The track listing is much, much better, the online modes are better and the inclusion of the ‘freestyle mode’ is the icing on the cake as you can use the controller to scratch ‘properly’ rather than line up samples. The game is out at the end of October and I can’t wait to get my paws on it.
KeRaSh
Damn you TC, now I got my hopes up again… a little… :D
shields_t
Nice grilling, nothing less than was deserved after the original. I’m optimistic but frankly if the pricing doesn’t change, I’m unlikely to take the plunge.
Supertaxman
same here, just too expensive for me.
Tuffcub
Well i buying DJ Hero 1 on the cheap so I can just grab the game when DJ Hero 2 comes out, much cheaper that way.
shields_t
Good plan, to be fair ithjnk I’ve seen it for about forty quid on shopto.
DJ-Katy
Sounds crap tbh. He evaded many of the questions, the new features especially freestyle scratch and the online stuff sound good but what he’s really saying is, the effects dial will be a flange or some stupid echo depending on which part of the track, the freestyle cross fade will be a simulation because there’ll be no point fading anywhere other than at the indicated points and not score points for it, and the music will still be mostly junk.
DJ-Katy
Also, ‘we didnt want to overwhelm the player in the first game’ is a euphemism for, we wanted to milk this cash cow by leaving out features that should have been in in the first place. So it’s ok to overwhelm new users in DJ Hero 2 who havent played the original, but it was all way too complicated for us simpletons in October? Disgraceful.
DJ-Katy
Oh.. did I forget to mention: “more focussed on two turntables and a mic” = we will sell more peripherals, and existing users will have to buy another turntable.
Tuffcub
You are a cyncical old cow bag. I’ve seen it in action and it is heaps of fun.
DJ-Katy
So was DJ Hero 1, not disputing that. I’m just saying the words coming out of the interviewees mouth were more slimey and evasive than David Cameron covered in baby oil.
Tuffcub
Absoloutly not, Jamie was a great bloke but he was very, very tired. The only questions he avoided were the ones he could not answer, Activision are keeping a lot of details under wraps. It was the same for every interview I did, not a single one of them was allowed to talk about DLC.
AddictedAndy
But you still can’t mix tracks on your HDD, I’m sorry but DJ’ing is about creativity and expression, this still sounds like you have to make the most out of what you are given by the dev’s which isn’t good enough! Just let us plug in a pair of headphones, cue the track and do the rest!!
Tuffcub
Ah but its not a simultion, it’s a game.