"Hey, you."

"What?"

"Time to come out and play."

"Did they release another RUSH pack?"

"No, silly, I'm gonna be a DJ now."

That was the imaginary conversation I had with my Rock Band Guitar when I began my trip into Zivix's rhythm title JAM Live Music Arcade, available now on Xbox Live Arcade and the PlayStation Network. Right after that conversation, my guitar stopped working. Either it was mad at me for leaving it alone for so long, or I needed to replace the batteries.

JAM Live Music Arcade features over 30 licensed tracks from artists such as Fatboy Slim, Fall Out Boy, Filter, Owl City, Modest Mouse, and many others that I haven't heard of. The genres span from Electronic to Hip-Hop to Indie Rock to Techno to even one classified as a "Melodramatic Popular Song." That's the easy part to describe - the hard part is trying to tell you what this game actually is.

There are two modes in the game, but only one is available when you start playing. While you may want to go into Arcade mode right at the beginning, you will be forced to start in "Jam Mode", which is a musical sandbox that includes challenges to unlock the next tier. Once you go through these challenges, you will see exactly why they don't let you jump right into the actual game.

JAM MODE

Jam Mode is a "musical sandbox", where you use the complicated interface to put your own spin on tracks like Funkytown, Float On, and many others I haven't ever heard of. It is an endless freestyle session where you can create your own remixes, and the "challenges" act as the tutorial for the game.

While gameplay is possible with a regular controller, you're really going to want to dust off one of your many plastic guitars for this one. But don't think of yourself as playing a guitar - think of yourself as being a DJ who can only cue tracks using a guitar. (Being shirtless and covered in tattoos is completely optional. Groupies not included.)

The gameplay is broken down into several components. You are controlling a "Bankset", with is a bank of sounds, and that is broken up with the different "Instruments" - guitar, bass, drums, vocals, keyboards, whatever the song calls for. Within these instruments, there are five "Tracks" that repeat. So, to activate a track, you will hold down the fret button for the Instrument, and strum up. Then, you will hold down the fret button for the Track inside that Instrument, and strum down. That will activate that track. You can activate multiple instruments and multiple tracks in those instruments all at once.

Still with me? Good. Now, in Jam Mode, you are still being scored, but you're being scored on how many Tracks you can activate on the beat. The first Track you activate begins the song, and then you cue other Tracks on other Instruments to add or change the backbeat or rhythm. There are also "Freeform" Tracks that you can stutter and activate at any time, no matter where you are in the beat, and they don't loop.

Once you have that down, then they tell you that you have other Banksets. A song can have up to three Banksets, and those are activated by holding down the corresponding color of the bankset and pushing the whammy bar. Once you change to a different Bankset, all of the Tracks change - even the ones you have already activated. So if you REALLY liked that bass line from the green Bankset, you lose it once you switch to the red one.

Pressing the Back button will begin a recording of your remix, so you can share it with your friends. In Jam Mode, you decide how long - or how short - to make your song. You gain points in this mode for "On-Beat Bonuses", where you cue Tracks and change Banksets on the beat, which is denoted by a metronome in the center. For those with high definition TV's that suffer from video lag, the timing seems VERY loose, so you won't have to worry about having to calibrate anything. Which is good, because there's no calibration option available.

But really, the points thing is kinda pointless, because you can still get Gold on a song in under a minute by just spamming two different Tracks repeatedly until you hit 25,000 points. Do that 20 times, and you get 85 Gamerscore. (I'm not ashamed...)

ARCADE MODE

All that, and we haven't even gotten to the actual GAME yet! Once you complete the Challenges in Jam Mode (there are five) you unlock Arcade Mode. This mode is a more directed experience, and exemplifies the complexity of the gameplay mechanics. Now, you are receiving commands that go up from the bottom of the screen to a bar at the top. These commands tell you what Instruments to have on, and what Tracks to play on them when the command reaches the bar. Miss the command, and the bar inches closer to the bottom. Hit a command, and the bar will inch back up to the top of the screen. The song ends when the bar hits the bottom.

Not only are you trying to strum the right notes on the beat, but you're also changing Instruments by strumming in anticipation of the next command. It gets extremely hectic, and the interface doesn't do you any favors. It highlights the buttons you have pressed, and all of their possible combinations - and also shows a bar for any Instruments you currently have activated. What this means is that you'll think you need an Instrument you don't need, or you think you already have selected something you don't, because you had that fret button held down to activate the last Track. In other words, the interface sometimes is giving you TOO much information.

The other problem with the presentation is that some of the colors are too dark. The Tracks you are to play are small borders around a circle that are color coded to the fret you hold down to play them. If none of the circles are colored, then it's played as an open fret that stops all of the Tracks. This would work all well and good if some colors (I'm looking at you, Invisible Blue) were not almost the same brightness as the black area behind them. Unfortunately, along with no video calibration settings, there is no gamma correction option, so in order to fix this, you'll have to adjust the brightness on your TV, or darken the room.

There are no difficulty modes - each song has it's own difficulty (but they are ranked) and there is no deviating from that. The more popular songs have a higher difficulty, so if you were hoping to make yourself believe that planet Earth turns slowly without being stressed out...Sorry, that song is in the "Veteran" category.
And yes, I DID have to hold down all five frets at once to activate all Tracks on an Instrument - on the third difficulty mode out of five.

The only cool thing about Arcade Mode is how it relates to that record feature in the Jam Mode. In Arcade mode, you can actually play YOUR remix that you recorded. So now, you can mash all of the fret buttons and switch Instruments and Banksets at will, record it in Jam Mode, then have your friend play it in Arcade Mode and hear him or her curse the game designer for their stupidity. But, that friend will have to be on your console, as there is no way to send your online friends your remix, so that means that when said friend learns that YOU designed the fret hell they just went through, they will punch you in the face.

All in all, there are a lot of neat concepts here, but they don't translate to a fun game. The gameplay gets very hectic on the more difficult songs, with the final song being loads more difficult than the other ones that came before it. This isn't hectic in the Note Hell sense of a Dragonforce song - this is hectic in that you have so much you have to worry about in a split second, that the experience ceases to be fun.

The ability to create your own remix and play it in the game later is a good idea, especially since the song doesn't sound like a bad MIDI song like Guitar Hero's GHTunes, but the lack of an online transfer makes the feature almost worthless. This is not a party game - this is very much a solo experience, which is not something you expect with a game that requires a plastic peripheral. The presentation in Arcade Mode presents enough difficulties where you feel like you're fighting the interface more than you're making music, and Jam Mode loses it's novelty once you've made a few combinations in the songs. There is a menu section for future DLC, but it's empty right now, and I can't see myself checking to see if it's ever filled with anything.

"Hey, Bobby, is RUSH coming out with another pack soon?"

"No, guitar. I'm afraid it's back to the closet for you. Hey, I need those fresh batteries. Gotta put them in my TV remote control - I use it more these days."

"..."

Price: $9.99 PSN, 800 MSP
Version Reviewed: Xbox 360
Acquisition Method: Promo code provided by publisher