Activision releasing a version of DJ Hero on Nintendo DS is inevitable. What isn’t inevitable though is whether they’ll bundle it with a peripheral like the DS version of Guitar Hero before it. It’s no big deal if it doesn’t happen – Deep Silver’s DJ Star proves that something like this can work just fine without any hunk of plastic hanging out of the DS’s cartridge slot.
Any game of the this ilk is going to live or die by its music selection, so it’s fortunate that the developers have had wide enough wallets to be able to include a large selection of licensed music including stuff from Calvin Harris, Eric Prydz, Bob Sinclair and Pharrell Williams. The sound quality is surprisingly good, although the DS’s speakers aren’t really designed for heavy bass lines.
At the start only a few tracks are available, with the rest becoming unlocked as your custom-made character starts their clichéd career path of going from a bedroom based disk jockey to a superstar DJ. There’s also a simple to use music creation tool to make your own music with. It reminds me of something I used to play around with on a Sony Ericsson mobile phone about five years ago – just drag and drop beats and away you go.