POSTED 18/6/12


JAM LIVE MUSIC ARCADE

505 Games
PS3/PSN (also on Xbox 360/XBLA)

Check it out now, funk soul brothers and sisters (pump up the volume!)...

If you’ve superstar DJ (here we go!) cravings, and got the feeling you’d been cheated by DJ Hero, which had as much to do with mixing as a sociophobe at a disco, then bring the noise for this here JAM thingy.

It’s a thingy of two parts. Plus, joy, it offers an excuse to whip out the placcy geetaw beyond waiting for Rock Band to release some decent DLC...

The first bit’s the entertainingest, and will have amateur mixmasters fist-pumping and dressing up as deceased rodents. There’s an array of songs from Fatboy Slim, Lipps Inc, Filter, Modest Mouse and Fall Out Boy through to shit that even the band members’ parents haven’t heard of, subdivided into bits then subdivided into banks. The five coloured geetaw buttons represent each bank, in which there are five different sub-tracks, also represented by the coloured buttons. Sounds complex? Nup. Pick a bank, start any combo of one to five tracks within, then flippity-flop between the banks kicking basslines, melodies, vocals and drums in and out at whim, creating your own unique mix.

Progression brings extra bank sets, so you might have a funktational verse thang happening and then BAM into a chorus thang with Mr Whammy, adding more sonics to play with (but no tails’). There’s no gaming point, it’s just fun musical play. Do it! Do it!

Perhaps feeling need for a gaming point, however, there’s a shitful arcade mode. Accurately recreate bank, note and other changes live, otherwise the trigger bar gets lower. So, in majestically arse-about fashion, it gets harder the more shite you are.
 
Ignore that, dig the creative mixing thang, and JAM’s an experience that won’t have everybody vibing, but it sure worked for us.

[Insert waily Dunya Yusin sample here...]

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