Jam Sessions

"Not technically a game, but it's still pretty fun."

Okay, before I start, I'd like to point something out. A six is NOT bad. As GameFAQs puts it: "6/10 - Fair - game is okay, but there are many better." See? Okay, now that I've made that clear..

I'll start with the graphics, they're.. boring. The only "graphics" you're going to see besides the single guitar string, is a "wallpaper" of sorts displayed on the top and bottom screen behind the notes you've selected and behind the guitar string. The wallpapers, however, are nothing more than simple drawings. On the plus side though, there ARE many, many ways to personalize your game, including the previously mentioned wallpapers, along with a small amount of guitar strings (Simply red, blue, flashy, etc.). The "songs" mode graphics are really unpleasant. Nothing more than a pattern of white, then blue, then white, then blue lines with the note you should play on that line.

In terms of game modes, your options are few, and even worse, your only going to be using one of them (Free play). The modes are: Tutorial, Warm Up (Hardly), Songs, and Free play.
Noticed how I put hardly next to the Warm up? Yeah, why you would need to warm up for a game like this is beyond me, but whatever floats your boat. Now the songs mode could of been so nice, but it's not. The song could easily be finished by just button mashing and screen scratching. Even if you really do want to play the song normally, you really can't due to the game not giving you proper directions on playing the song. Free play is the only reason this game deserves a score above one.

Since the free play is so good, it deserves it's own section in this review. This is basically the game play section. There's more to free play than what you would normally expect. There's quite a few options to change the experience. I'll start with the "Palette Change" this is really the only important option. This is where you go to change the notes you currently have. You can hold up to 16 notes at one time. One for each direction. Press (and hold depending on the option you have) the L button and the notes would switch to the other eight you selected. There are a total of 190 notes to select from (No power chords, you hard rock fans). You can save your various chords if you like them. You can have two palettes loaded at one time. You can save up to 20 palettes at one time. You can also save up to five recordings. Now this is weird: you can activate the mic, and sing into it, and you can even hear your voice coming out of the DS' speakers, but you can't record your own voice. Kind of weird, huh? To actually play music (although the Tutorial DOES tell you), you assign the note, for example, Cm to Left on the D-Pad. To play the note Cm, you hold left, then strum up or down. Up for a delicate, peaceful sound, and Down for a lower, harder sound. There are also some effects you can add on to make the music sound different. These include Distortion, which is the closest you're going to get to an electric guitar sound. Chorus, which makes it sound like multiple guitars are playing simultaneously. There are quite a few other effects. The only other option worth mentioning is the Theme mode. Which is where you assign your backgrounds and guitar strings.

The sounds are nice and pretty much the main part of the game, I usually turn off the sound on DS, but, you know, you really can't do that with this game. All the guitar notes sound good, except for two issues. A minor one: If you hold out the A6 note, you'll hear a mistake in recording. At the very end, it sounds like someone whispering "Don't kill us". A major one: No electric guitar sounds. Distortion is close, but it's very, believe it or not, distorted. Sounds like it's coming out of a bad speaker. The A6 issue really is minor, you really don't need to hold out a note that long.

The controls are basic, yet effective. There's very few controls. Not like it's a bad thing. If you've read the whole review, you'd know that the L Button switches the notes and that the D-Pad controls what note you play. But the controls I didn't mention, are pretty unimportant. The R Button turns whatever effect you're using off. Although it doesn't make a difference in recordings. If you have an effect activated, it will stay activated regardless of whether you switch it on and off during the recording. The other unmentioned controls are the Y and A buttons. They make whatever notes you have on the top screen go one step higher or lower respectively.

Final thoughts:

As a game, it's not very good. As a musical tool, it's great. Unless, you're a die-hard fan of music, you really shouldn't buy this in hopes of it being a fun game. I'm not saying it's not fun, just that, well, like GameFAQs says, "6/10 - Fair - game is okay, but there are many better."

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 11/19/07

Game Release: Jam Sessions (US, 09/11/07)