‘DJ Hero’ could inspire a new generation of DJs

October 31st, 2009 | By Arkane

Sam Maxion knew he wanted to be a DJ when he was 12.
“I was at a wedding and seeing a DJ doing his thing,” he says. “I was mesmerized.”
That moment sparked a career that’s led him to learn the art as a teenager with disc jockey crews. It has opened up doors to stints at radio stations in San Francisco, Phoenix and Hawaii as an adult. Now, Maxion produces music and spins records at East Bay clubs.
But with all that experience, somehow he’s found himself back at square one. The professional DJ is in the same boat as thousands of wannabe beat mixers: He’s learning to play “DJ Hero.”
The latest addition to the “Guitar Hero” family crosses a major boundary. Since its inception, the franchise has focused on rock. It rarely has gone outside the established gameplay of guitar, vocals and drums.
But with “DJ Hero,” released this week, Activision’s FreeStyleGames studio ventures into uncharted territory. The developer takes that music-rhythm formula and applies it to hip-hop, the dominant form of pop music for the past two decades. It introduces players to a turntable controller that captures the spirit of spinning records in the same way “Guitar Hero’s” plastic instruments emulates shredding on an ax.
If this catches on, the ramifications could be just as big as the 2005 original. Activision’s music franchise has made more than…..keep reading here