Do not adjust your monitor. I am, in fact, not Aaron Thomas. He's still off on his honeymoon, so I'm taking the reins for this edition of DLLD. You know, I'm starting to think this whole marriage thing is a little fishy. I mean, right now, during the busiest gaming season of the year?
You're right: It's ludicrous to suggest that Aaron purposely got married in order to slough off work. But isn't it interesting that he's gone and I'm writing this instead? That's all I'm saying.
Anyway, I'm not bitter or anything, because I got to indulge my recent fascination with DJ games and check out Delicious Vinyl DJ for the iPhone. Let's see how the beats match up to the competition.
Game: Delicious Vinyl DJ
System: iPhone
Price: $2.99
The Lowdown: The Los Angeles-based record label Declious Vinyl has been cranking out hip hop records since 1987. Not having much exposure to old-school hip hop, I hadn't heard of it, but apparently it currently enjoys a certain cachet among the young Hollywood elite, because OMG I just spotted Twilight star Kristen Stewart wearing a Delicious Vinyl t-shirt!! So the label has decided to take advantage the renewed interest by creating a music game for this iPhone gizmo that everybody's talking about.
It sounds like the setup to a half-assed cash-in, but instead developers Ten23 Software put some elbow grease into it and churned out a quality game.
Delicious Vinyl DJ's interface will look familiar to anyone who's played a game with "Hero" or "Band" in the title. Icons fall down three tracks. The middle track handles effects, while the left and right tracks correspond to two turntables at the bottom of the screen -- virtually scratch them in the proper direction to unleash your inner Grandmaster Flash.
I was initially wary as to how all this would translate to the iPhone. I've enjoyed fooling around with the DJ Hero controller, and how could Delicious Vinyl DJ compete with the fact that the DJ Hero setup is, you know, an actual physical object?
To my surprise, the scratching feels absolutely satisfying. The wheels are large enough -- and the game forgiving enough -- that mistakes come few and far between. After a few practice rounds, I was mixing cuts and matching beats on Hard with an 85 percent success rate.
Ultimately, however, Delicious Vinyl DJ succeeds more as an interesting novelty than a must-have app. That's because the game is essentially a glorified advertisement for Delicious Vinyl. The featured artists -- Young MC, Tone-Loc, The Pharcyde, Masta Ace, Mr. Vegas -- are all part of the Delicious Vinyl family, and when selecting one of the game's seven tracks, you're given three options: play it, buy it, or go to the artist's Delicious Vinyl Web page.
There's nothing inherently wrong with that, per se, but it does hamper the end experience. Unless you're a fan of Delicious Vinyl artists, there's not much for you here.
What the Touch Arcade commenters say:
Dsalehipour delivers a scathing review: "this actually looks hard."
Chad echoes a sentiment I'm sure many of us share: "Doesn't have What Up Fatlip?, going to pass."
Wannabe shows off his skillz at the keyboard: "Yo dawg dis lookz lik da bomb. Yo did ya check da dude mixing in da vid. Dat waz wack!!!"
