DJ Max Fever for PSP Reviews by Gamers

I have no rhythm. Patapon helped me learn beats, but like Terrence Howard in Mr. Holland's Opus, I'm pretty lost when it comes to keeping pace with music; it's one of the reasons I prefer singing in Rock Band and couldn't get very far in Elite Beat Agents. Still, every once in awhile a music game comes along that makes me put on my headphones, have some fun, and not care that I suck at tapping buttons in time with tunes.



DJ Max Fever is one of those games, and if you dig quirky titles and Asian-inspired pop tunes, it probably deserves a place in your UMD collection.



If you've played Guitar Hero, Rock Band, or -- God help you -- Rock Revolution, the mechanics of DJ Max Fever should be second nature. Although the franchise has made several appearances across the sea, Fever represents DJ Max's first trip to the United States and is actually a compilation of DJ Max Portable and DJ Max 2. You'll choose a song, a video will start to play, and a little cell phone-like screen displaying falling notes will pop up. As the notes cross a line on the cell phone screen, you hit the corresponding button, make music, and get some points. Keep on making beautiful music, and a combo counter will continue to grow on the screen. As that combo count climbs, a Fever Gauge will fill. When the meter's full of Fever, you can tap X and get double the combo and score for awhile. If you're terrible and missing notes left and right, a column of energy on the right side of the screen will fall, and if it hits zero, you're done, son.


Come watch the beats drop.

Seems pretty standard, right? Well, it is, but what makes DJ Max so frickin' cool in my eyes is the song library you have at your fingertips. There are 50 songs to go through and rock and they range from techno beats (Jupiter Driving) to pop songs in English (LuvFlow) to noir rap (Out Law). There's truly something for everyone in this game, and if you can't dig the music, there's got to be a video that you'll like -- who doesn't love the Bruce Lee look-alike with snot coming out of his nose doing pushups in Astro Fight? I mean, Taekwonburi has a dancing duck who only quacks and a DJing dog; that's just awesome.



Another welcome touch -- for both rhythm-less losers like myself and DJ Max vets who want to push their skills -- is your ability to increase or decrease the challenge in the game. See, when you jump in to just play a few songs, you'll need to decide if you want to play with four buttons, five buttons, six buttons, or the unlockable eight buttons. Obviously adding buttons means your adding lines and notes and generally making things tougher on yourself, but you're also opening the door for more points. Meanwhile, you can set the overall difficulty of the mode you pick to be easy, medium, or hard, and you can slow down or speed up the note speed via effectors. In short, if you struggle with music like me, you can make the game easier, and if you're a rockstar, you can give yourself the business.



All these points you're trying to rake in aren't just for high scores; doing well gets you gold, and gold can be exchanged for the hidden characters, pieces of equipment, and new notes. What's cool about these unlockables is that they actually affect the gameplay. When you unlock, purchase, and use the notes shaped like hearts, you'll gain three percent more experience points when you finish a song. When you unlock, purchase, and use the Green Miles skin for your phone, you'll get five times the amount of gold you'd normally get. On top of all that, there's an RPG-like leveling system that tracks your progress to level up through good performances. All of these bonuses are boiled down in the Collection screen where you can see your level, the discs you've been awarded, the percentage of media you've unlocked, your multiplayer record, and more.



So, all of this is spread out over a couple of modes. You can just jump in and bump to the unlocked song of your choosing in the Portable option with the goal of nailing four tracks, but you can also scroll to Xtreme Challenge via Portable. Here, you're given a specific goal such as maintaining a certain accuracy or using Fever a certain number of times. If neither of those options floats your boat, you can go play Freestyle and play any of the 50 songs. Outside of Portable, there's a multiplayer section for you and a friend to battle via head-to-head ad-hoc as well as places to go watch the movies and/or listen to the tunes without having to play the game.



For as much as DJ Max Fever has going for it, it's definitely got a few issues that are going to keep it from being everyone's cup of tea. To begin with, there's pretty much no flair to this title. You start the game and get a nice looking video, but then you're dumped to a main menu that isn't the most informative -- unless you were reading the instruction manual on the drive home, I doubt Portable, Collection, MV Edition, or OST icons are going to let you know what the hell the modes are all about.



Of course, that's a one-time stumbling block because once you go into the modes, you know what they do, and oddly, the same can be said for the buttons. Yes, this incarnation of DJ Max removes the button icons from the cell phone screen. You know how in Rock Band the red and green buttons are supposed to be pressed when note icons drop in those buttons' respective rows? That's the same idea here, but the button icons aren't displayed. Now, if you've played DJ Max before, you probably know that Left, Up, Triangle, and Circle are the basic commands for a four-button session, but if this is your first time wading into the DJ Max deep end, you'd have to check the control section of your options to see what was up. Technically, you could hit any button you like when a note crosses the line, but you're only going to get 20 percent of the score if you hit the wrong button at the right time.



This control thing is very odd to me. If I hadn't played preview builds that still had the buttons, I don't know if I ever would have known what to hit because there is no tutorial in DJ Max Fever. That's a pretty big issue in a game that's making its first proper appearance in the United States. The move doesn't kill the fun for me, but it does leave me scratching my head and wondering how much love was put into this game and whether or not it was just a quick compilation.

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