Jam Sessions 2 - Nintendo DSi

true <img src="/contributed/1259181004Mrkfe62PNW.jpg" alt="" /> Prior to putting Jam Sessions 2 into my DSi, I hadn’t touched a single music game on the handheld. Games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero have always been more multiplayer focused, and even though Jam Sessions 2 is based around the guitar only, I just never understood the appeal of trying to play an instrument with a system as tiny as the DS. Sadly, after playing the game for a few hours, my opinion remains unchanged, and despite some pretty interesting creation tools, Jam Sessions 2 isn’t very fun to play.  Jam Sessions 2 has three main modes when playing: Songbook, Free Play, and Recording Studio. Songbook is essentially your single-player campaign/career. There are a few songs open to start, and completing them will unlock a few more. Depending on how well you perform, and on what difficulty you’re playing, you’ll unlock certain additional features for the recording mode. The Songbook is not only filled with cover songs, which in this day and age is pretty much music game blasphemy, but moves along at a snail’s pace once you progress beyond the opening tracks. Free Play allows you to play whatever songs you’ve unlocked, as well as giving you the ability to jam out to your heart’s content. Both modes would be much more enjoyable if the simulated guitar mechanics weren’t so frustrating to use. <img src="/contributed/1259180953w72uWW0bkR.jpg" alt="" /> Using the touch screen as virtual strings, the stylus as your pick, and the d-pad as your chord changer, Jam Sessions tries to recreate playing the guitar as closely as it possibly can within the confines of a DS. While the strumming and single-string picking are actually fairly intuitive, chord progressions are an absolute pain to deal with. You can have four chords mapped to the d-pad, with an additional four accessed by holding in the top bumper, for a total of eight possible chords during any given song. The top screen indicates which four chords are mapped to the controls in case your forget, but most of the time it won’t matter because you’ll find your finger slipping of either the bumper or d-pad, and hitting the wrong notes. In Free Play, it’s not a big deal because you’re just screwing around, but during Songbook it’s a major issue. Songbook probably resembles a traditional music game the most. There’s a note highway on the top screen telling you which strings to strum, only instead of just hitting the right strings, you’ve also got to be holding the button for the right chord. At first, it’s an interesting mechanic. After finishing a few songs, your hand starts to cramp, and hitting the right buttons in time with the more intricate progressions becomes an exercise in frustration. While I appreciate the fact that they’ve added in single-string picking, those segments are particularly infuriating considering just how little space you have to actually hit the notes. Ubisoft definitely tried to impart the experience of playing a real guitar in a virtual setting, and to a point they succeed, but in trying to create a game that tries to stay too true to the instrument it’s based on, they also end up with a product that’s far less enjoyable. <img src="/contributed/1259180949aeyqagtbvE.jpg" alt="" /> Jam Sessions' major point of interest is the Recording Studio. Here, you’ll be able to create your own arrangements using the song building tools built into the cartridge. You have plenty of options at your disposal, including what type of bass line or drum beat you want. There’s also an option to use key musical phrases from the songs you’ve unlocked to help shape your own piece. Quite frankly, compared to what console music games offer, Jam Sessions 2 more than holds its own. You have a virtually unlimited amount of possibilities on which cues you put together your own jam, and the only limit you’ll encounter is the length of the song. Considering the miniscule amount of memory the DS offers, short songs are to be expected, but that shouldn’t deter you from giving this particular aspect of the game a try. I spent a great deal of time just goofing around with the various creation aspects, and it was pretty fun, but I’m just not sold that the recording studio is enough to warrant the lack of depth in the other game modes. I mean, I get that Ubisoft wanted to offer something different than what Activision was giving gamers with their Guitar Hero port, but the elements that they added to make Jam Sessions 2 more of a traditional game aren’t as fleshed out as they should be, and they seem tacked on instead of necessary. Truthfully, the only difference between this game and the first that holds any sort of weight is being able to pluck single strings, and one upgrade is not nearly enough of a reason to push out a sequel. <img src="/contributed/1259180941XPyaPvKlNG.jpg" alt="" /> It’s a shame Jam Sessions 2’s total package isn’t as great as the individual parts that it’s built on. The Recording Studio is a terrific time waster, but doesn’t offer anything remarkably different from the first that would warrant an upgrade. Songbook is an aggravating mess that would have been made more tolerable if there were actual recordings instead of covers, but I’m not sure even that would have made that mode worth completing. Ubisoft had a chance to really step up their game, and prove that this type of game could succeed in a market shared with Guitar Hero and Rock Band. Unfortunately, Jam Sessions 2 ends up being a forgettable experience that made me want to play the competition’s music games more. [<a href="http://www.gamespot.com/ds/puzzle/jamsessions2/images/0/10/?tag=imagenav;next">Images</a>] <img src="/contributed/1239819851iBsjJiAdPn.jpg" height="125" alt="" width="245" /> review

2009-11-25T15:31:34-05:00

<img src="/contributed/1259181004Mrkfe62PNW.jpg" alt="" /> Prior to putting Jam Sessions 2 into my DSi, I hadn’t touched a single music game on the handheld. Games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero have always been more multiplayer focused, and even though Jam Sessions 2 is based around the guitar only, I just never understood the appeal of trying to play an instrument with a system as tiny as the DS. Sadly, after playing the game for a few hours, my opinion remains unchanged, and despite some pretty interesting creation tools, Jam Sessions 2 isn’t very fun to play.

9396

11573

2009-11-25T21:20:42-05:00

false

2009-11-25T15:31:34-05:00

5.0

jam_sessions_2_nintendo_dsi published More Hand Cramps Than A Real Guitar. Jam Sessions 2 - Nintendo DSi

2009-11-25T21:20:42-05:00

825