DJ HERO 2

PLATFORMS: PS3, X360 AND Wii.

GENRE: MUSIC

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. 

     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. 

 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. 

 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.