Metascore

Generally favorable reviews - based on 53 Critics What's this?

User Score

Generally favorable reviews- based on 45 Ratings

  • Summary: DJ Hero drops the needle with a completely fresh experience and legendary artists including Black Eyed Peas, 50 Cent, Justice, Marvin Gaye, Beck, Beastie Boys and N.E.R.D. DJ Hero features more than 100 individual songs that have been transformed into more than 80 exclusive, original mixes by superstar DJs including DJ Shadow, DJ Z-Trip, DJ AM, and the legendary Grandmaster Flash. With an innovative, new turntable controller and the hottest music collection of original music, DJ Hero is a unique new social music gaming experience that excite the millions of dance club music fans who can now play along to hit songs from a range of genres including hip-hop, R&B, pop, rock and electronica allowing them to rule the party with original mixes. Joining the internationally acclaimed DJ, producer and recording artist DJ Shadow, who has been consulting and contributed several mixes for DJ Hero, and making their video game debuts, DJ Z-Trip, a founder of the mashup movement who’s known worldwide for his sold out shows and eclectic style, and DJ AM, one of the world’s premier and most in-demand DJs today, appear as in-game characters and have each created multiple exclusive mixes for DJ Hero. In DJ Hero, faces in the crowd are transformed into the life of the party as the game’s turntable controller - created exclusively for DJ Hero and featuring familiar DJ tools including a fully-rotating turntable, sample buttons, effects dial and cross fader - immerses fans into the authenticity of DJ culture and a sea of music. By utilizing and mastering various DJ techniques including scratching, blending, cross fading and sampling, while leaving room for creative expression with a variety of effects and player chosen samples and scratches, gamers rule the party performing music as only a DJ can. Social expression is heightened with euphoric multiplayer gameplay where two DJs can battle competitively or have a player join in to emcee over any track in the game with a mic. Additionally, gamers can rock together as DJ Hero features DJ-guitar exclusive mixes played with a turntable controller and Guitar Hero guitar controller. [Activision] Expand
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 52 out of 53
  2. Negative: 0 out of 53
  1. 100
    As much fun as Guitar Hero - and perfect for any party. The music is great, but we miss some more game modes.
  2. In DJ Hero, I really do get the distinct sense that I'm spinning for a full house. This title will appeal to both casual and core gamers alike, with a beginner's mode even toddler children can play fairly well and enjoy.
  3. With DJ Hero, Activision definitely take some of the thunder back that was stolen by Rock Band. While it doesn’t give us something completely different, it does give us one fantastic twist on a flavour that might be in the early stages of getting stale.
  4. 70
    It’s just too hit and miss, too divorced from its stated purpose and is too anaemic in its dispensation of the funk.

See all 53 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 10 out of 11
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 11
  3. Negative: 1 out of 11
  1. RobertC
    10
    This game really did supprise me. Yes its another Hero game, but I really prefer it to Guitar Hero. Great tracks, and gets better every time you play it. Expand
  2. ChristianJ
    10
    This game is absolutely brilliant, it manages to make you feel like a DJ, like you are really pumping up the sound and everything! The complaints ive seen of the crossfader are true in a way, but, in my case, I got used to it after a few sitings, believe when i tell you this.. THIS IS ONE OF THE BEST MUSIC GAMES OUT THERE! (its well worth the price tag) Oh and another thing .. I recommend you to start on the Hard difficulty because, in my case, I found Medium and Easy to boring. Expand
  3. MarkB
    8
    First things first, I am a guitar hero fanatic and I love this game. This doesn't mean that there isn't any way to improve it. The Good: The set list is good, after a while, some songs start to blend into each other but that is only to be expected with almost 100 mixes made from popular songs (note: not pop songs). Overall there is a large amount of variety of DJ style songs: mixes that focus on the art of scratching simple beats (DJ shadow's set is good for this), famous DJ songs (Daft Punk, etc.), surprising mixes that still work quite well (Marvin Gaye vs Gorillaz) and even down to cleverly mixing lyrics ("We will, we will... Robot Rock ... you"). I was surprised by this aspect of the game and since playing it, I've been listening to a lot of Scratch Perverts, somethings that every hero game should do: Introduce you to music. A lot of the reviewers complained about the difficulty curve and I agree to an extent. Hard is lackluster in that it can go from almost boring to "Holy crap, how the hell can they expect me to do that?". Other than that though, easy is made for people who haven't tapped a button along to music before. Medium is to start to introduce the elements that make the game fun, like crossfading and scratching. Hard starts the directional scratching and crossfade spikes while Expert introduces long scratch sequences that make you feel pretty damn good when you hit them. This actually ties in with one of the negatives of the game but we will get to that. One last thing I will say is that I have personally found the travel to expert difficulty much quicker and easier than it was to get to expert drums; It took me weeks to get good at drums but a few solid play sessions and a music game background of DJ hero and you should have a good feel for it. The controls are really where this game shines. The controller is quality and feels solid, the buttons are firm but responsive and not noisy like on some of the guitars. My only complaint here is that the crossfader is a bit sloppy in the way it works. There is a small, almost unnoticable stopper halfway along and if you are even a little too hard when pushing the crossfader back to the middle, it will flick right over to the other side and drop your combo. You do get used to it, but it gets a bit frustrating when you start out. The Bad: I really only have a few minor complaints about this game. The first of which is the plain exclusion of a few features that have been in guitar hero since early days. We know they work and they wouldn't still be in GH5 if they weren't seen as necessary. They are: Quickplay - You either have to play the predefined sets or make your own set, there is no simple "I want to play this song" option Practice - Play any of the heavy scratch sequence songs and you will wish you just slow it down for a sec just to check that that one arrow that you keep dropping is actually an up arrow and not a down arrow. These aren't huge things but I just don't understand why they got left out. My biggest criticism of the game is that it just doesn't feel like a party game any more. Sure you can pass the controller around and each take turns but the real party experience in guitar hero was with two controllers, facing off to see who could mash those buttons the fastest. This game just doesn't deliver on this front. Guitar vs DJ mode is just a cheesy way to tie in the guitar to the game where 10 of the songs in the game have one of the tracks played by guitar and someone can join in with a guitar controller if they like. DJ vs DJ I played for the first time the other night and it just doesn't give the same feeling of the epic guitar battles that my friends and I used to have. Lastly, tying in to what I was saying about the difficulty, this game is really complicated. Not really something that you can just pick up without it being explained to you. It has excellent tutorials and in the end, the game has more depth to it because of being so complicated but if you are looking for a pick up and play game like guitar hero, you really aren't in luck here. The End: The game just has a good feel to it, the beautiful 3d scenes, the weird art in the menus and loading screens, the nice track list and responsive well made controller, this game has a lot going for it. If it wasn't for the fact that I feel that they are taking a bit of a step back in the accessability and multiplayer of the franchise, then this game would be a perfect 10 as far as music games go. Expand
  4. stephenH
    0
    Although fun single player is very short lived compared to the Guitar Hero franchise simply due to the fact that multiplayer is nowhere near as brilliant and seeing as how multiplayer is usually what keeps these games alive for me, it will simply die off for me. Expand

See all 11 User Reviews