The Black Eyed Peas Experience

So "Imma Be" honest here. "I Gotta Feeling" that The Black Eyed Peas Experience was going to be fun. "Shut Up," "Don't Lie," you know it looks fun too, and your kids would like it unless "They Don't Want Music" games. Personally, "I Just Can't Get Enough" of dance games. But as much as I like to shake "My Humps" and "Rock That Body," the game could only seem to "Meet Me Halfway" and caused more "Anxiety" than "XOXOXO." So "Let's Get it Started" with the review for The Black Eyed Peas Experience.

The Black Eyed Peas Experience is a dance game along the lines of Dance Central or The Michael Jackson Experience. You follow along with the dance moves on the screen, like an aerobics tape that judges you at the end. It stars all your favorite band members like will.i.am, Fergie... uh...

Anyway, The Experience works much in the same way any of these dance games do. For those of you that just want to have fun at a party, you can jump into any of the songs and dance. But the campaign mode is where you unlock new venues, clothing for your avatar, and learn the different routines step by step.

There are elements of The BEP Experience that are actually better than Dance Central 2. Before each move the count in meter shows a silhouette performing the entire move, instead of the simple picture most games have. It's far more helpful to see the move in its entirety instead of trying to memorize dumb names and pictograms.

Which is not to say this game is superior to Dance Central. In general I found my personal Black Eyed Peas experience to be competent, but all too often I had trouble getting the game to recognize moves. It would see the big arm-waving movements, but miss the smaller ones. It's all too fitting that motion recognition in a game like The Black Eyed Peas Experience would dismiss subtlety in favor of bombastic partyrocking, but it does make getting a high score difficult.

But by far the biggest problem with the game, more than any other, is that every single one of the 30 songs on this disc is performed by the Black Eyed Peas. I find music games themed around one group to be flawed in general, but The Beatles, Green Day, and Michael Jackson all had to the catalog to back it up. And I understand that the BEP are celebrated pop/hip-hop musicians, who won a Grammy for that song about Fergie's butt, but they're also a group best experienced in small doses in a club.

Interestingly, the songs in The BEP Experience are far less edited than any music game I've played, which is good and bad. It's almost jarring to have a karaoke track tell you to sing the word "sh--" (unedited) and even more jarring when the line is "Beats so big I'm steppin' on leprechauns, sh---in' on y'all with the boom boom." And the songs are still somewhat edited, usually taking out the words no video game journalist should ever say in print (or anywhere).

Closing Comments

When I say “Black Eyed Peas” if you say “Hell yeah!” then you should think about getting The Black Eyed Peas Experience. For everyone else who is probably thinking “Oh I like that one song, the one with the beat, you know…” stick to Dance Central 2, or Just Dance 3, both of which are fun, multiplayer dance games that feature a wider range of songs.

by Jack DeVries

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Posted in: Music

Just Jam: WII

WiiWare's lone release this week is a new music game – though it's not so much a game as it is just an interface to use in messing around with some songs. Just Jam gives you some music, breaks apart the drum, guitar, keyboard and vocal pieces that comprise it, further divides those pieces into five smaller tracks and allows you to turn on and off all the individual sound components at your leisure to build a unique jam session that's all your own.

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It works well. Though the tutorial is intimidating and it at first looks like this is going to be one of those overly complex virtual synthesizers like KORG DS-10, it's actually really accessible and fun to play with once you get past the introductory instructions and start goofing around. All of the included songs and song components have been skillfully arranged to sound good in any combination, so no matter what you do you're going to end up with something that sounds slick. You can then save your favorite performances to listen to them again later, and the more you play the more songs that are unlocked for you to toy around with.

There are some drawbacks, of course. The songs here are great, but none of them are famous – so there's no jamming along to Michael Jackson, Aerosmith or the Beatles here as in other more major music games. You can download new songs from an in-game storefront at a cost of a buck apiece, but there's no audible preview of what you're about to buy – you've got to go on the text description of the track to decide whether or not it would be something you'd actually like to listen to.

And the control is a mess in Freestyle mode, but that's not as great a concern – since the default Music Mixer control style is much cleaner and easier to use.

Closing Comments
Altogether, Just Jam is surprisingly fun for what it is – a game that lets you just jam. If you don't want anything more than that and you don't mind playing along with songs you've never heard before, go for the download.

by: Lucas M. Thomas

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Rock of the Dead: X 360

On the surface, Rock of the Dead sounds like a great use of all those plastic guitars cluttering your living room. Meteors crash to Earth and give off radiation that reanimates the dead and causes horrible monsters to spawn from the dirt. You need to stop them by wandering the world with your guitar and rocking out. Colored buttons appear over the bad guys, you strum the onscreen sequence, and the horrible baddies explode.Everyone has a ball. Sadly, Rock of the Dead doesn't do much with its premise. The music is public domain stuff along with some Rob Zombie classics that aren't the best quality, the world doesn't look good, and the repetitive nature of everything just saps the fun out of the title. Even the vocal work of Neil Patrick Harris can't make overcome this game's ho-hum visuals, sound and gameplay.

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So, yeah, meteors crash rain down upon a trailer park and players set off at NPH's stoner/rock dude who might have the occasional one-liner but usually is just a bunch of "Duuuuudes." From a first-person perspective that's on rails, you move around levels and face off against the bad guys that appear before you -- it's basically Typing of the Dead with a guitar instead of a keyboard. Most of these guys lumber at you with the colored buttons above their heads and you have to tap them out. These aren't in any kind of rhythm; you just need to get through the sequences as quickly as possible, but after years of strumming along to real songs, the "click-clack as fast as you can" gameplay can be a bit jarring.

Occasionally, you'll come to a monster or mini-boss where you actually need to play along with a song that pops up. Here, the notes float by on a horizontal track, and you clack along like every other music game you've played. Thing is, the song being played just doesn't sound great. That goes for all the tracks in the game. They don't sound like they're high-def or meant to be coming out of a HD console.

Levels go on like this. As you play, you earn shields and a special power that allows you to pulverize everything on the screen, but this is the main thrust. Our stoner dude is just making his way through the trailer park, on to the beach, to the radio station and so on. None of these environments look all that good and neither do the enemies you're fighting. Rock of the Dead is a bland and blocky game visually.

There is a multiplayer mode if you want to have someone else hop in and jam along with you, but I found it to be a bit cumbersome. When we were playing and the screen was filled with enemies, it was hard to tell which character button combo I had started and which my friend had started and what I should be focusing on and what the friend should focus on. It's a bit of a mess.

Closing Comments
Rock of the Dead isn't bad; it's just flat. The music isn't good, the visuals aren't good, and the gameplay isn't all that interesting. I found myself feeling like I was completely done with the title by the time I was through the first level -- there's just nothing all that exciting about it. All of this is even sadder considering that this looks and feels like a downloadable title but is in fact a budget retail game (and that means it has a budget retail price).

The silver-lining to all of this is that Rock of the Dead provides you with something else to do with all those fake guitars you have sitting around. If staring at those things has been annoying you, the gameplay works here and gives you something to do. However, I think I'd rather hold onto my money and keep on staring at the instruments. Also on: PS3

by: Greg Miller

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Dance Central Kinect: X360

It takes a special kind of bravery to get up in front of a group of friends and dance around like a crazy person. In Dance Central, the first Kinect-friendly party game from the talented folks at Harmonix, players will need a fair helping of that bravery. This is the first "real" dance game I've ever played, one that demands actual full-body dancing from the player (and not just the fancy footwork required in the DDR franchise). This means you need a gung-ho attitude to play, but it also means that you have one fantastic party game for people that love to dance. Although Dance Central isn't a perfect experience, the good times that come with it are well worth the investment.

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Dance Central uses the Kinect technology to read the player's body as he or she follows a series of on-screen prompts that depict a dance routine. These "flash cards" each represent one move, and that move can range from a simple shuffle step to an advanced series of upper body motions. There are more than 30 songs in the game (ranging from new hits like "Evacuate the Dance Floor" by Cascada to classics like "Jungle Boogie" by Kool and the Gang) and each track has three different difficulties to play on, which must be unlocked in order.

Each difficulty level builds on the dance moves of the previous routine and the hard level material, once you unlock it, is genuinely tough stuff. I love to dance and I'd consider myself moderately able, but some of the moves in the hard routines were a serious challenge for me to pull off.

Luckily, there are a few helpful modes in Dance Central for new dancers (those that lack "the funk"). Break It Down is the only way to learn some of these routines, as it cycles through each move one at a time and gives players the option to slow down the move until the player is comfortable with the steps. This mode is complemented by a helpful announcer that actually shouts out the dance queues during the move, like "right, step, back, step" in time with the beat.

Break It Down is absolutely essential for the difficult dances, but it would be great if the mode was a little more flexible. As far as I can tell, there's no way to practice a specific move without going through the entire practice routine. And if you fail a move enough times, the announcer automatically ushers you on to the next move which you need to manually stop with a wave of the hand.

Workout mode is also a nice addition to the formula, though I'm not sure how many people will use it because Dance Central is mostly a party game. In this mode, players enter in their weight and the game keeps track of their calories burned over the course of the play session. I personally won't use this mode, but it's a solid part of the experience. Doing the routines is actually a workout in and of itself, which was apparent to me when I emerged from the IGN demo room covered in sweat (I do, admittedly, dance really hard).

I was impressed at how well Kinect and Dance Central read my body movements. One move made me raise my arms up in true robot fashion, bend forward at the waist, and then sit down in the air. I was originally frustrated at this move because the game wasn't registering my motions properly and I kept missing that portion of the dance. I thought it was Kinect's fault, but as it turns out I just wasn't bending at the waist far enough. This punctuated my realization that Dance Central offered legitimate dancing, though there are times when you'll pull off a move well and it just doesn't register. But for the most part, you really have to get moving if you want to master a routine and you can't fake it -- lest you want a crappy score.

These routines are realistic for the average person. There aren't any back flips or handstands in Dance Central, but there are moves that will take a lot of practice, especially for someone uncomfortable with dancing. Generally, I found the routines extremely entertaining, especially if you practice and aim for mastering a hard level routine. Most of the moves are also totally applicable to the real world dance floor, so you might even find yourself picking up a new technique to employ at the club.

Overall, Dance Central is lots of fun, especially with a big group of people that are willing to get a little goofy and give it their all. It's also a fantastic workout if you put effort into your moves, but the experience is far from perfect. Menu navigation, which is handled by waving your hands, takes some getting used to, and I noticed that there were some technical bugs with the lip-synching of the on-screen characters.

The most disappointing part of Dance Central is the overall feature set. It's just not as much as you'd expect from the developer of Rock Band. Although there are a few unlocks in terms of costumes and dance venues, there's no actual career mode to play through -- every song is available from the start, with the exception of special mash-up challenges. This is a wise design choice for people jumping right into a party, but it's less rewarding for those dancing solo.

And for those parties I keep going on about, it would have been nice to have some sort of tournament support or shuffle mode where different people could jump in and out of the competition quickly and with minimal menu navigation, but as it stands right now every dance battle must be set up manually. Dance battles are fun, where players trade on and off during a routine and compete for points, but I would have liked to see more. After all, once the drinks start flowing, people will not want to worry about "menus" or "accuracy" or "dignity."

Closing Comments
Dance Central is great fun, it gets you moving, and it's absolutely perfect for parties. Although it's disappointing to see so few features and unlocks included, the actual song selection, dance routines, and the accuracy of the Kinect implementation is what makes Dance Central worth a look. Dancing is one of my favorite things besides video games, and Dance Central combines those two pastimes beautifully.

by: Ryan Clements

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Michael Jackson: The Experience

Michael Jackson: The Experience has appeared all over the place. The Wii, DS and PSP versions all came out at the end of 2010 and spanned the spectrum from "Okay" to "Awful." A few months later and the 360 and PS3 versions have finally shown up to complete the pack. Each version has approached the goal of making Michael's legendary music playable in different ways, and met varying degrees of success.

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The PS3 version of Michael Jackson: The Experience is like the older brother of the Wii version. It uses the same set of live action dance sequences superimposed over themed backgrounds. You're free to sing or dance to 29 of Michael's tunes using the PlayStation Move controller and a compatible USB microphone (neither peripheral included). You can rock the stage solo or play with up to three of your friends by picking two singers and two dancers. It's the best of the motion-based Michael Jackson games, but it's still not the full-body, robust package that Michael Jackson fans deserve.

If you're in a dancing mood, you pick a song and watch as guide diagrams slide up the side of the screen. By using these as reference points and following the on-screen dancer, you'll earn points for dancing along with the music. If you're more eager to grab a mic, the song lyrics will appear on the bottom of the screen, along with a pitch meter to give you some feedback on your performance. This all makes for a simple premise that's not quite as effective as I hoped.

The biggest problem with Michael Jackson: The Experience on PS3 is the same problem inherent to the Wii version: the PlayStation Move isn't reading your entire body. Even though it encourages you to dance along with the choreography, you're only being scored on the movement of your hand, which deflates the whole idea. Thankfully, the PlayStation Move is a much more accurate device than the Wii Remote.

I performed Billie Jean several times in different ways to see how the controller reacted. In the Wii version, I could generally shake the controller in time with the music and score about the same as performing seriously. With the PS3 version, shaking my hand along with the music only earned me about 1,000 points. Performing with my whole body, I scored more than 7,000 points. Lastly, I played Billie Jean a third time but only followed the dancer's hand motions. The result was a slightly higher score than my full-body performance, but this variation could be from my growing level of comfort with the choreography.

In short, the PlayStation Move reads your dancing well enough through your arm movements. It's not as accurate as I would have liked because some moves that I know I nailed registered as a "miss," but it works most of the time. It's nowhere near as immersive as something like Dance Central, but that's okay because Michael Jackson: The Experience also doubles as a karaoke game.

You can sing along to any of the 29 included songs, and your score will depend on how accurate your pitch is. Michael Jackson: The Experience doesn't register your pronunciation of the words, unfortunately, so you can cheat by humming along if you so desire -- perfect for those unfamiliar with the words or too tipsy to care.

The dancing here is the weaker of the two options, mainly due to the lack of a proper input method. Even still, a great deal of this choreography is tricky and the guide diagrams don't help much -- especially when they stop appearing during the performance and assume you can keep following along until the next diagram comes around.

The most fun I had with Michael Jackson: The Experience was playing with three other friends here at IGN. While two of my buddies screamed out Smooth Criminal and disrupted the rest of the company, News Hound Jim Reilly and I swung our Move controllers with bravado. It was good, silly entertainment, and I could see a bunch of friends getting a kick out of the experience without the stress of "failing out."

Closing Comments
I'll always have a personal connection to M.J.'s tracks, and performing them with a bunch of friends should be entertaining -- even if the PlayStation Move controller isn't ideal for a full-body dancing game. Despite the poor input method, difficult choreography and nebulous guide pictures, Michael Jackson: The Experience can make for some silly fun. It's worth checking out if only to see some of the dancers perform -- they're pretty fantastic.

 

by: Ryan Clements

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Posted in: Music

Dance Central Kinect: X360

It takes a special kind of bravery to get up in front of a group of friends and dance around like a crazy person. In Dance Central, the first Kinect-friendly party game from the talented folks at Harmonix, players will need a fair helping of that bravery. This is the first "real" dance game I've ever played, one that demands actual full-body dancing from the player (and not just the fancy footwork required in the DDR franchise).

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This means you need a gung-ho attitude to play, but it also means that you have one fantastic party game for people that love to dance. Although Dance Central isn't a perfect experience, the good times that come with it are well worth the investment.

Dance Central uses the Kinect technology to read the player's body as he or she follows a series of on-screen prompts that depict a dance routine. These "flash cards" each represent one move, and that move can range from a simple shuffle step to an advanced series of upper body motions. There are more than 30 songs in the game (ranging from new hits like "Evacuate the Dance Floor" by Cascada to classics like "Jungle Boogie" by Kool and the Gang) and each track has three different difficulties to play on, which must be unlocked in order.

Each difficulty level builds on the dance moves of the previous routine and the hard level material, once you unlock it, is genuinely tough stuff. I love to dance and I'd consider myself moderately able, but some of the moves in the hard routines were a serious challenge for me to pull off.

Luckily, there are a few helpful modes in Dance Central for new dancers (those that lack "the funk"). Break It Down is the only way to learn some of these routines, as it cycles through each move one at a time and gives players the option to slow down the move until the player is comfortable with the steps. This mode is complemented by a helpful announcer that actually shouts out the dance queues during the move, like "right, step, back, step" in time with the beat.

Break It Down is absolutely essential for the difficult dances, but it would be great if the mode was a little more flexible. As far as I can tell, there's no way to practice a specific move without going through the entire practice routine. And if you fail a move enough times, the announcer automatically ushers you on to the next move which you need to manually stop with a wave of the hand.

Workout mode is also a nice addition to the formula, though I'm not sure how many people will use it because Dance Central is mostly a party game. In this mode, players enter in their weight and the game keeps track of their calories burned over the course of the play session. I personally won't use this mode, but it's a solid part of the experience. Doing the routines is actually a workout in and of itself, which was apparent to me when I emerged from the IGN demo room covered in sweat (I do, admittedly, dance really hard).

I was impressed at how well Kinect and Dance Central read my body movements. One move made me raise my arms up in true robot fashion, bend forward at the waist, and then sit down in the air. I was originally frustrated at this move because the game wasn't registering my motions properly and I kept missing that portion of the dance. I thought it was Kinect's fault, but as it turns out I just wasn't bending at the waist far enough. This punctuated my realization that Dance Central offered legitimate dancing, though there are times when you'll pull off a move well and it just doesn't register. But for the most part, you really have to get moving if you want to master a routine and you can't fake it -- lest you want a crappy score.

These routines are realistic for the average person. There aren't any back flips or handstands in Dance Central, but there are moves that will take a lot of practice, especially for someone uncomfortable with dancing. Generally, I found the routines extremely entertaining, especially if you practice and aim for mastering a hard level routine. Most of the moves are also totally applicable to the real world dance floor, so you might even find yourself picking up a new technique to employ at the club.

Overall, Dance Central is lots of fun, especially with a big group of people that are willing to get a little goofy and give it their all. It's also a fantastic workout if you put effort into your moves, but the experience is far from perfect. Menu navigation, which is handled by waving your hands, takes some getting used to, and I noticed that there were some technical bugs with the lip-synching of the on-screen characters.

The most disappointing part of Dance Central is the overall feature set. It's just not as much as you'd expect from the developer of Rock Band. Although there are a few unlocks in terms of costumes and dance venues, there's no actual career mode to play through -- every song is available from the start, with the exception of special mash-up challenges. This is a wise design choice for people jumping right into a party, but it's less rewarding for those dancing solo.

And for those parties I keep going on about, it would have been nice to have some sort of tournament support or shuffle mode where different people could jump in and out of the competition quickly and with minimal menu navigation, but as it stands right now every dance battle must be set up manually. Dance battles are fun, where players trade on and off during a routine and compete for points, but I would have liked to see more. After all, once the drinks start flowing, people will not want to worry about "menus" or "accuracy" or "dignity."

Closing Comments
Dance Central is great fun, it gets you moving, and it's absolutely perfect for parties. Although it's disappointing to see so few features and unlocks included, the actual song selection, dance routines, and the accuracy of the Kinect implementation is what makes Dance Central worth a look. Dancing is one of my favorite things besides video games, and Dance Central combines those two pastimes beautifully.

by: Ryan Clements

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Posted in: Music

DJ Hero 2: PS3

DJ Hero was my favorite music game in a long time, boasting amazing mash-ups unavailable anywhere else and a fun new turntable controller. I've mixed and scratched pretty much everything there is to do in the sequel, DJ Hero 2, and while the novelty has worn off slightly, this is still my music game of choice. If you haven't played DJ Hero, it's set up much like Guitar Hero with colored notes falling down a runway.

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You're hitting the corresponding buttons on the turntable controller in time with the music, but you have the added tricks of scratching and crossfading here.

DJ Hero 2's tracklist is aiming at a wider audience than the first game with lots of current Top 40 hip-hop and club hits from artists like Pitbull, Lady Gaga, and Tiesto. This one will probably appeal to a more general audience, but I prefer the first game's remixes. There seemed to be more variety in DJ Hero, with genres like old school hip-hop, electro, and rock better represented. Gaga and Pitbull are incredibly popular, but they're not my thing. There are still some real gems here, though, like a Sean Paul vs. Beverly Hills Cop Theme mash-up and a thrilling Damian Marley vs. Dillinja drum and bass mix.

DJ Hero took music games back to their roots, eliminating all the world tours and story modes to focus on just the music, much like the original Guitar Hero. The sequel's single-player progression is called Empire Mode, which is supposed to follow your DJ from low-level spinner to international sensation. I never felt like I was furthering my career, though, or even that I had my own DJ. You pick from a few pre-determined characters at the beginning, and at times your DJ is replaced by pros like DeadMau5 and the RZA. It's fun working through Empire Mode's increasingly difficult tiers of songs and unlocking them for Quickplay, but anyone looking for a real career mode in DJ Hero will have to keep waiting.

There are a bunch of friendly sort options for the 83 mixes in Quickplay like complexity, duration, and artist/title. You can create setlists of several mixes to play back to back. Happy with your score? You can send a challenge to a friend to beat it right from the post-game menu.

Party Mode can be enabled from the main menu, which plays songs jukebox-style so you can just enjoy the impressive remixes. Unfortunately, Party Mode only plays songs randomly, so you can't pick your favorite tracks.

New Freestyle sections of songs let you crossfade, scratch, and trigger samples how you like. Crossfading is the best of the three, allowing you to isolate records A and B at will. But Freestyle scratching and trigger sampling comes with some lag that makes it difficult to perform in tempo. Plus, you can only produce the most rudimentary scratches, and the pre-recorded professional scratches in the game sound much better than anything you can pull off with the plastic controller.

The first DJ Hero let you hook up a microphone and sing along or freestyle over the mixes, but the vocals weren't part of the gameplay. Now, a vocalist can participate in the performance and be rated on his or her pitch and rhythm just like in Guitar Hero or Rock Band. However, because these are unique mixes with chopped-up and scratched lyrics, they're really hard to sing along with. Plus, your favorite song will be mixed with another track you may or may not know. Newcomers picking up the microphone to sing with DJ Hero 2 at a party will be very confused.

I've said in the past that DJ Hero is a lot of fun despite the fact that it doesn't have much to do with real DJing (much like the disconnect between Guitar Hero and actually playing a guitar). One example: DJs play extended mixes of many songs strung together, but in DJ Hero you play one mash-up at a time. The sequel partially rectifies this by including six Megamixes that string three to four songs together. It's a welcome addition I hope to see expanded in future DJ Heroes.

The two-player battles have been much improved. Whereas previously each player simply tried to reach the highest score on the same song, now you have actual call-and-response DJ battles. Player one scratches a few phrases, then it's player two's turn. They try to outdo one another until a winner has won enough checkpoints. These enjoyable battles can be played either locally or online.

You can follow your Rep from the main menu and check on the progress of your Achievements/Trophies, compare your scores on the Leaderboards, see how many stars you've earned, and read your Hero Feed. The Hero Feed provides all sorts of fun statistics from how many mixes you've played to game hours logged to your average score multiplier.

Calibration is a necessary evil in modern music games. Unfortunately, calibration in DJ Hero 2 is a confusing affair that often took me several tries before I could actually play the game. This and long load times keep me from getting into a song as fast as I'd like. Also on: PS3, X360, WII

Closing Comments
DJ Hero 2 doesn't mess anything up that made the first game great. I personally prefer the tracklist of the original DJ Hero, but it will come down to how much you like Top 40 radio hits from the likes of Lady Gaga and Pitbull. This is still the best soundtrack of any music game, though, and the mash-ups remain impressive as hell. There are great new additions like Battle Mode and Freestyle crossfading, but also a couple missteps like vocals and Freestyle scratching. If you liked DJ Hero, I'm confident you'll like the sequel and I recommend it to anyone even casually interested in DJ or dance culture.

by: Daemon Hatfield

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Posted in: Music

Def Jam Rapstar: X360

I've been dying for a great rap video game for years now, ever since I played Get on da Mic on the PS2 and wanted to kill myself because it was so bad. Other music games have tried, but they never figured it out. Rock Band just gives you points for saying anything you want during the spoken word portions. Rapping in Singstar is so broken you'll never get a good score. Developer 4MM Games has been working for years to create a rap game that will finally give gamers that true hip hop experience.

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Def Jam Rapstar is miles better than any other alternative, and is almost a fantastic game, but its attempts for widespread appeal keep it from performing at its peak.

The karaoke genre has been around for almost a decade now, so you can probably guess how Rapstar works, but here we go. Like all games of this type, words appear on the screen and you "sing" along. The music video plays on the screen, though that can be swapped out with footage of the players if you have a PSEye or Xbox camera. I was all psyched to record video of myself rapping the hell out of these songs. But did you know I sound/look/dance like a prepubescent white kid? Seeing the video playback for some of these songs has been the most humbling experience of my life.

There are 45 songs in Rapstar, which isn't a lot but is standard for music video-based karaoke games. The track list is all over the place. East Coast, West Coast, the dirty South, contemporary, old school, and some of the total crap that passes for rap music these days.

I feel like I'm pretty up on rap music, but I only knew about half of these songs well enough to try and bust them out. It's an awesome selection of tracks and there's something for everybody in here, but that's the thing. Everyone I tried to play the game with knew two, maybe three songs on here. It was great for a party game because we all took turns, but there is no way I can convince my friends to purchase a full-priced game for that one Snoop Dogg song they like. Honestly though, the only way around this would have been to release multiple SKUs of the game that were themed to different styles. In the future I could see games like these coming with no songs on disc, but with credits towards 45 songs that you hand select out of the store, giving yourself a custom game library (feel free to steal that idea, developers).

There is already DLC on the store, though not a lot. 4MM says every week new songs will pop up on there, so fans of any particular genre of rap should be able to customize their catalog. Personally, I'm hoping more R&B with rap bridges make it onto the store, instead of just limiting it to pure rap (can I get some Usher up in here?). Also, there are some artists that are painfully absent from this game. How is Jay-Z nowhere to be seen? Fix that, ASAP.

In addition to the licensed tracks are 15 beat tracks that rappers can freestyle on. It's not so much for parties as it is for the hardcore out there that actually want to rap. It provides them the tools to get a track up and then show it off to other hip hop fans.

The biggest issue with the game is the editing. I get that the developers wanted a Teen rating, but some of these tracks get butchered. It prevents the game from feeling like a pure hip hop game. Literally every person I played with groaned when they saw their favorite song edited. What makes it worse is that the edits aren't even consistent. Words like "ass" or "hoe" will sometimes be censored, and sometimes left in. Now nothing stops players from saying the words anyway, and I am certainly not advocating people saying a lot of the words that are taken out, but from a purely artistic perspective this should have been an M game. Honestly, what parents out there are magically going to be ok with Rapstar just because it's T instead of M?

If you can get past the editing (and a lot of songs aren't too terribly censored), then the game is great. This is the most fun I have ever had with a karaoke game. Ever. Hands down. And I'm speaking as an expert on the genre, here. There's a level of skill here that makes the game more rewarding. In most cases it's a lot harder to rap than it is to match pitch. Nearly all of these tracks are great party music, so cranking it up and playing with friends is fun as hell.

Back in 2008, Greg Miller and I were really impressed with Singstar's community features. Players could upload videos and vote on each other's performances through the PS3's in game community.

Def Jam Rapstar blows Singstar's community out of the water.

Players using the aforementioned cameras have the option to edit their video at the end of each song. Instead of a preselected clip, rappers can choose any section of the song they want and cut up to 30 seconds of a clip. After they've taken their footage, players can add stickers, audio effects, filters, and animation. You can essentially create your own music video, as low key or as crazy tacky as you want. It's silly, and most of the time it comes off goofy instead of badass, but it's fun, and it makes it so that no two clips are ever the same.

Uploading the video to the community opens up even more features. Sure, there's the in-game system where I can watch and rate videos, but the Rapstar website is where it gets really cool. Every video uploaded goes to the website, where players can rate each other, share their videos on Facebook and Twitter, make friends, earn fans, and develop rivals. They can even challenge each other to rap battles where each player has to submit a video and the users on the site vote on who is the best. It makes the experience universal. So if my friend has the Xbox 360 version and I have PS3, we can still have rap battles and be friends.

The community is what kept me coming back to Singstar, up until I realized it was never going to get better. Def Jam Rapstar's community is still in Beta, but it's already got way more potential. The developer says that over the coming weeks improvements will be made. Right now you can't comment on videos or form Crews (think a guild, but for rapping). Also on: Wii, PS3

Closing Comments
Is Def Jam Rapstar perfect? Hell no. Is Def Jam Rapstar fun? F--- yes it is! As just a party game I've had a blast with it. The censorship is annoying, and hurts the game more than the developers would like to admit. But even that can't change the fact that it's a fun game, pure and simple. The online features are what save the title. Showing off your skills (or lack thereof) on the Internet and schooling fools in front of the entire world feels really good. If you're a hip hop fan, get this game. Then get online, find me, and prepare to get clowned.

by: Jack DeVries

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Posted in: Music

Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock: WII

It's a scary world for music games in 2010. Last year, publishers went for broke with release after release - Activision in particular pushed out Guitar Hero: Metallica, Guitar Hero 5, Guitar Hero: Smash Hits, Band Hero, and Guitar Hero: Van Halen - and audiences largely stayed at home. This year, Activision has curbed Guitar Hero's touring schedule to just one game: Warriors of Rock. The last Guitar Hero title to be developed by Neversoft,

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it's been called a return to the series roots. Sadly, Neversoft doesn't seem to have gotten within sight of the tree. From a confused setlist that doesn't jibe with the game's heavy metal aesthetic to wildly varying difficulty and a lack of accessiblilty that might make it the hardest Guitar Hero game in recent memory for casual players to get into, I was left with a final question that I was never able to answer - why Warriors of Rock is here.

Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock features the heaviest narrative focus of any Guitar Hero yet. The story goes something like this: an epic hero battles an ancient evil with a mighty axe (get it?), but the hero is defeated. Entombed in stone, the hero's axe is lost, and the evil slumbers. But the evil awakens again, and it's up to the characters of Guitar Hero titles past to discover their rock-powered true selves in order to take the fight to the Beast. In practical terms, this boils down to unique abilities reminiscent of Call of Duty's perk system. Each character has a particular talent - Casey Lynch has a streak guardian, which protects a multiplier from a missed note, while Lars Umlaut can build a 5x multiplier rather than the usual 4x, etc.

The campaign is divided into character oriented set lists. With regards to progression, Warriors of Rock is actually a big step backwards for the Guitar Hero series. As of last year's Guitar Hero: Metallica, new tiers of songs were unlocked according to stars earned, regardless of where those stars were attained. In Warriors of Rock, characters need to be transformed before you can progress, which requires a set number of stars earned from their own setlist. This number of stars is never consistent - each character has to earn a different number of stars to invoke their power animal, as it were, and their abilities can have a drastic effect on how many stars they can get in a song.

It's here that the game really sort of unhinges from past games. The 5 star paradigm that you're familiar with is gone, due to the character specific perks. Whether it's the ability to gain star power from each 10 note streak or the ability to overdrive your crowd meter, you'll generally be shooting for 7 stars as often as possible (and tracks that will see you earn 10 or many, many more aren't unusual). This is both because there are once again songs that are locked from access until you activate each character's transformation, and because honestly, the setlist in Warriors of Rock is all over the place in terms of tone, difficulty, and most importantly, fun. Where the last few games gave you freedom to explore the setlist at your own pace and preference, the "quest" nature of Warriors of Rock has led to something rigid and often frustrating.

This is primarily due to song choice. While Neversoft promised a Guitar Hero game celebrating hard rock and metal, in reality, Warriors of Rock's setlist may be the most uneven collection in any of the main Guitar Hero titles. Sure, there are some standout tracks, like "Children of the Grave" by Black Sabbath and "Holy Wars" by Megadeth (which, coincidentally, is locked for play elsewhere in the game until a specific Quest milestone is reached), and some songs that surprised me by how much fun they were to play, such as R.E.M.'s "Losing My Religion" and The Cure's "Fascination Street". But there's a surplus of tracks that seem out of place. I don't hate Linkin Park, for example, but of all of their songs, why is "Bleed It Out" here, or "How You Remind Me" by Nickelback?

There's also a great deal of classic rock that falls outside the hardcore veneer of Warriors of Rock. This isn't just an issue of preference either - I can get into a song if it's fun to play, regardless of how I feel about the music. My lip curled at the idea of groaning my way through it, but, for example, "Unskinny Bop" by Poison is actually a lot of fun. But there are too many songs that are just boring to play, whether they're difficult, easy, or somewhere in between, and not enough moments like "Money for Nothing" by Dire Straits.

Then there are the songs that just don't belong in Guitar Hero; as much as I love NIN and their Broken EP, a song like "Wish" just isn't any fun in the context of Guitar Hero, where guitars have been declared king, but half of the song is composed of synth lines mapped to the touch sensitive trackpad that Neversoft added in Guitar Hero World Tour (which is used liberally in GH:WoR, despite its absence on the Guitar Hero axe being released in tandem with the new game). There are a number of synth heavy songs that are nevertheless shoehorned into Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock awkwardly - I don't want to play Freddie Mercury's piano parts from "Bohemian Rhapsody" on the guitar.

Meanwhile, the story itself is, to put it delicately, dumb. Gene Simmons' narration is stilted and awkward, character designs both before and after transformations tend toward the uglier Guitar Hero iterations that marked Neversoft's initial forays into the series, and all the grace and style of Guitar Hero 5 has been replaced by a crude UI that feels dated. The strongest statement Neversoft made with a Guitar Hero game was when Guitar Hero 5 didn't go into a title screen; it just panned to a band on a stage that began to play a random song from the game that you could jump into at any time. Sure, that mode is back, but Party Play is practically buried under a sea of menus - like everything else in the game, honestly. With Warriors of Rock, that elegance of presentation is gone, and the game is worse for it.

Of course, all the features from previous Guitar Hero games are present - Quick Play+ allows players to enable certain perks to accomplish song specific challenges, and the multiplayer focus is as strong as ever, enabling as many instrument combinations as five players can muster.

Wii owners once again get an additional mode particularly well suited to bring more casual players to the game in the returning form of Roadie Battles, this time with support for up to four roadie/instrumentalist teams. As the guitarists play on the big screens, DS players (through the magic of Download Play) earn spins on a sort of prize wheel by their partners performance. Prizes enable DS players to play minigames that can boost their partners performance or fix wrecked note highways - more than once, at least one players fretboard looked like something out of 2012 as evil spells wreaked havok on their game. It's a lot of fun, and helps the Wii version of the game to stand tall with its more attractive HD peers.

Other than that, though, the few changes the game sees outside of the quest mode seem geared to the highest echelon of Guitar Hero players, leaving behind the entry level audience that made the series so popular in the first place.

Closing Comments
Ultimately, that last point summarizes the most damning thing about Warriors of Rock - a lack of any compelling reason to exist. Neversoft placed the lion’s share of their eggs in the Quest mode’s metal themed basket, and it buckles under the pressure. From a technical standpoint, Warriors of Rock works, but existentially, more than ever, Guitar Hero feels aimless. It’s no GH: Van Halen, but after the excellent Guitar Hero 5, Warriors of Rock feels like a lackluster encore rather than a blistering second set. Guitar Hero has been on tour too long now, and it shows. It might finally be time for the band to take a break before heading back into the studio. Also on: Android, X360: PS3:

by: Arthur Gies

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Posted in: Music

Disney Sing It: Family Hits

If there are two things I like way more than I should it's Disney and karaoke videogames. Unfortunately, my love for Disney doesn't extend to their cable network, so my enjoyment of the last three Disney Sing It games has been limited -- I mean, there's only so much Hannah Montana a grown man can handle. So I was more than reasonably excited to hear that Disney Sing It: Family Hits would feature songs from the studio's huge catalog of animated films. This game has been a long time coming, and it could have been awesome if there weren't some things holding it back.

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Before I really get into this, we all know what a karaoke game is, right? You sing, you get points, it's exactly what it sounds like and it's been a genre for seven years now. Moving on.

Family Hits features 30 songs spanning 60 years of animated classics. The game is available for the PlayStation 3 and the Wii, and both versions are basically the same, except that the PS3 has HD footage and camera support. Normally developing a title for multiple platforms isn't a big deal, but in this case it causes some of the game's problems.

Thirty songs is not a lot, and a karaoke game is defined by its song selection. For the most part these are great songs, with the exception of some of the Pixar choices (Do you remember that classic Randy Newman song from A Bug's Life? Yeah, me either). Still, this game really needed to have more tunes. I love that songs from Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, and the Lion King are in here, but a lot of my favorite films only have one song, whereas Cinderella gets four, and the Toy Story series has three. Still, every song on here is better than most of the stuff they play on Radio Disney. These are Grammy and Oscar winning songs, sung by people who have the voices to carry the performance.

People can claim they don't like Disney movies and music, but they're usually full of it. I played this game like I play all singing games: I tricked friends into coming over, gave them wine, then busted it out. Sure, they all claimed they didn't know the words, but then got a nearly perfect score in Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. Unless you lived under a rock your whole life, these songs are ingrained into your psyche.

Every song includes footage of the film in great looking HD on the PlayStation 3, while the Wii is in standard definition. What is odd is that the music videos are montages of the film, and not just the scene the song is from. Certain movies, like the Pixar films, require this since the song wasn't featured in full, but other times it just messes things up. For example, Almost There from Princess and the Frog has one of the most visually interesting scenes in the movie, but the music video has literally none of the cool stylized parts. What's up with that?

They also missed a major opportunity by not having a DLC store. A music store would have made this game for me. It's the biggest thing the Disney Sing It series is missing. The ability to expand my collection with downloadable tracks would ensure I'd be playing this game for months. So where the hell is it?

It seems like the fact that the game is for the Wii as well as the PS3 killed having more songs on the disc and a DLC store. Those features are just not as easily done on the Nintendo system. It's either that or Disney is already gearing up for Family Hits Volume 2 (which the trophy whore side of me likes, but the consumer side of me hates). Also on: PS3, Wii

Closing Comments
The fact is that if the idea of singing Hakuna Matata in your living room appeals to you (as it does for me), then you'll enjoy Disney Sing It: Family Hits, at least for a while. It's definitely a game for the littlest of kids and the Disney fanatics, but these songs are way better than the pop stuff that has filled the previous games. If this game had an online store, or any community features, I could recommend it to everyone, but it really just doesn't have enough to stay fun for more than a night or two.

by: Jack DeVries

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Posted in: Music

DanceDanceRevolution: WII

When I think of arcades, I think of DanceDanceRevolution (DDR). Its intense, rhythm-based gameplay not only helped uncoordinated gamers exercise, but it also served as our window into the delightful oddities found in Japan's gaming world. DDR has made an appearance on a number of consoles, including several appearances on the Wii. The latest version is once again Wii-bound and simply titled DanceDanceRevolution.

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The newest in the sweat-inducing line of games offers more of the same gameplay we've come to expect, along with choreography sections that take advantage of the Wii remote and nunchuck peripheral. It's a polished game with a diverse track list, but some odd issues hold back an otherwise enjoyable experience. It's also based on an outdated formula that's been surpassed by other dance games available today.

DanceDanceRevolution uses the same basics as its predecessors: directional arrows flow up the screen towards a "step zone" at the top of the display. When the arrow crosses the corresponding marker in the step zone, players step on the indicated part of the included dance mat. The more accurate steps a player completes, the more points they earn. This is all traditional stuff for DanceDanceRevolution, and it still works.

The track list is a sticking point for DDR enthusiasts, and the tunes in this DanceDanceRevolution make for an interesting set. A number of popular American songs like Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" and Paramore's "crushcrushcrush" are included alongside several older tracks like "Celebration" by Kool and the Gang. Most are fun to dance to and work well with DanceDanceRevolution's style. A handful of the high-intensity Japanese songs that DDR veterans love also make the cut, but most of the initial tracks are American. Luckily, more tracks can be unlocked on top of the initial group.

Incorporating your upper body is where motion controls come in. Players can opt to follow the "choreography" style of dance where upper body icons accompany the traditional dance arrows. These icons give players directions to point in and wave their hands to, which is interpreted by the Wii remote and nunchuck. If a nunchuck isn't available, the game will input the nunchuck commands automatically and players just follow along with the rest.

These choreography modes should be a total blast for kids, because it involves the whole body and it's not overly difficult. But it's also not particularly accurate. Most motions, regardless of direction, can be input just by shaking the remote around in time with the beat. It's a shallow type of fun, but it's still a nice option to have.

For those bored of the traditional modes, the additional ones are a good way to mix it up. The course music strings a set of songs together to play through, which is nice for those that want to progress through a series of challenges with no menu interruption. There are also different styles of co-op play, which grade players based on the highest or lowest accuracy among the group. This is fun if there's a skilled player that can carry the rest of the team to a victorious smattering of points.

The Wii version of DanceDanceRevolution also presents players with specific challenges to shoot for like scoring a certain number of points in a song, which is a nice touch. This adds another layer of motivation on top of the standard song scoring. This feeling of accomplishment is further enhanced by the fact that players unlock new songs, character outfits and more as they play.

Rewards aside, I'm happy with the included tutorials. This was a smart idea on the developers' part to bring in newcomers, and giving players the ability to practice songs (or parts of songs) at a slower pace is invaluable.

You'll need to slow down songs and practice, too, because DanceDanceRevolution has some issues that make it occasionally brutal. There's a massive difficulty spike between the Basic and Difficult settings. On Basic, things are way too easy for me, but jumping to Difficult seems steeper than it should be -- and Difficult isn't even the hardest setting available. Also mindboggling is the lack of a pause button. Perhaps there's a secret pause feature that I'm not aware of, but no button on my mat or controller paused the game. Oversight? I'd say so.

Along with difficulty and pause issues, the thing that holds DanceDanceRevolution back the most is its age. This is largely the same game we've seen for years. This is a good thing for those that have happily followed it, but I personally want something more out of a dance game. The tech has evolved to a point where we don't necessarily need to follow a set of four arrows to "dance." There's more realistic ways to bring dancing into games. The Kinect title Dance Central, which involves real dancing with no peripherals, makes dance pad games feel antiquated.

Closing Comments
DanceDanceRevolution is a fine purchase for those that feel the urge to stomp their feet to glowing arrows, but the gameplay hasn't changed dramatically over the years. The inclusion of "choreography" and other specialized modes make this dance experience a well-rounded and ultimately enjoyable one, but it won't usher in a new legion of DDR fans considering the game's excellent competition.

by: Ryan Clements

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Posted in: Music