DJ Hero

DJ Hero primarily simulates turntablism, a musical style used by disc jockeys to create a new mashup song by incorporating one or more previously recorded songs played on record players along with sound effect generators. The game features score attack gameplay similar to the Guitar Hero games. The controller consists of a wireless deck consisting of a movable turntable that supports 3 "stream" buttons, an effects dial, a crossfader, and a "Euphoria" button; a hidden panel contains additional controller buttons to interact with the gaming console outside of the game. A portion of the controller can be detached and reattached to adapt the unit for left-handed players.

Notes travel in an arc across a spinning record on screen, and the player holds down one of the 3 stream buttons to play notes; two buttons reflect the two songs used in that particular mix, and the third represents samples to add to the mix which can be adjusted with the effects dial. The player must also constantly adjust the crossfader to match onscreen symbols, which alters the relative volume of the songs as to bring one song to the forefront of the mix for a short time. Certain tracks are shown on screen as a series of up or down arrow, representing scratching sections, requiring the player to turn the turntable in the direction of the arrows while holding down the button to score points, mimicking the scratching of the record needle on vinyl albums. "Euphoria" is equivalent to Guitar Hero's Star Power, collected by successfully completing specific phrases in the song mix, called Perfect Regions, and can be released by pressing the Euphoria button, doubling the player's current multiplier as well as automatic crossfading when active.

Activision had initially applied for a trademark on the name DJ Hero in early 2008, leading to speculation that Activision was making plans to compete against Konami's Beatmania series of music video games with their own DJ game as a possible spinoff of their popular Guitar Hero series. FreeStyleGames, a small developer of music games, was employed to help produce localized downloadable content for Guitar Hero games and develop another yet-to-be announced music game. This game was later revealed to be DJ Hero. Activision CEO Bobby Kotick confirmed the existence of DJ Hero in an interview with CNBC on January 20, 2009, revealing a release "later this year".

Activision CFO Thomas Tippl stated that DJ Hero would be aimed at a broader audience than the Guitar Hero games primarily through the use of more contemporary music in its soundtrack. Producer Will Townsend stated they opted for a wide variety of music to "make sure that everybody has something in there that they want." DJ Hero was designed as a party game and to make the player "the life of the party", giving ways for them to be "in control of the music", according to Townsend.

DJ Hero has received positive reviews from the gaming press, who consider the title as a fresh restart of the music genre given the large number of titles based on guitar play. The turntable peripheral was considered to be well designed to meet the needs of the game. The unit's weight, size, and shape, and ability to cater to both left- and right-handed players was commended. Many reviewers noted a need to alter the action of the crossfader, either by having better physical feedback to the player to indicate the center of the knob's track, or by reducing the width of the track to better handle the rapid crossfade maneuvers.

Reviewers also noted that there was a certain weight to the turntable portion of the controller which made scratching imprecise, particularly with the inner blue button where only minimal torque can be applied. The learning curve of the game across the various mixes was highly commended by reviewers for helping players to get used to the new controller. When progressing from "Medium" to "Hard" and "Expert" levels and encountering more complex mixes, reviewers thought the game felt transformed, bringing a difficult but more rewarding experience to the player as they begin emulating every part of a real DJ's motions. Johnny Minkley of Eurogamer considered that while the learning curve is steep, with the "Easy" difficulty being "less thrilling and engaging" compared to Guitar Hero, the game was "structured fabulously to nudge you gradually closer to the summit" with each successive career set and difficulty mode.