Jam Sessions

"A little skimpy on the features, but otherwise fun to play."

I've had Jam Sessions for about an hour and half now, and having "played" it for that long, I feel as though I've tried just about everything this game has to offer. So lets get that out of the way right now. This is very much a bare bones title. There's not a lot to it, but what's there is was presented fairly well. Having played a guitar for about ten years, I found the sounds on this Jam Sessions to be fairly realistic and much of the technical jargon to be true to my experience. I am, however, getting a little bit ahead of myself, so let me start back at the beginning.

Jam Sessions isn't really a "game" per-say. More to the point, it's a game in the same way that electroplankton is a game. Instead of offering up a series of goal-based musical challenges, Jam Sessions is all about emulating, as well as the DS can, the sound and feel of an acoustic guitar, which you can play freely. This is done by "strumming" the stylus across a giant E-string on the touch screen while using either the D-pad or buttons (right handed and left handed settings, respectively) to select the chord you wish to play. This gives you 8 chords, plus another 8 that can be accessed by the L or R buttons. There are also different setting that allow you to customize your sound, background, tuning (which comes in handy more than you'd think) and a palette editor, where you can choose which chords will be available while you play.

The game comes with a tutorial and a crude walkthrough, both of which could have been a little more informative, and then there are a handful of songs for you to sink your teeth into. Each one has it's own chord palette and strumming guide. Since the guide follows your chord changes, you're allowed to rewrite the rhythm however you like, so long as the chords play in the same order. I've really got to hand it to Ubisoft in this department. They did a fairly good job picking out a decent cross section of tunes. Too bad it was a waste of time to do so, as the real action in this game comes from free play.

Free play is the game mode where you're given a completely blank canvass on which to come up with whatever ideas may strike your fancy. you can even record bits of ideas for later, or you can strum a tune and sing into the microphone while plugging your DS into an external amp, and put on a one man concert, though doing so is a bit awkward. This is the beauty of free play, it offers, in much the same way than an actual instrument would, the freedom to explore the potential of the device in whatever direction you might choose, and explore equally the potential of your own creativity.

There are a number of custom backgrounds you can access, and there's surely enough there that you'll find at least one that you like. There are also a handful of different effects, and you can apply any two in for your guitar. Getting the settings right on these can be a bit tricky, as the demonstration sound that plays while you're twisting the little knobs plays way too loud and makes the guitar sound far worse than it otherwise would. You'll find yourself pressing the "try" button over and over again and nailing each sound through trial and error. Just like real effects, these have parameters that go well beyond the point of tasteful if used in excess, and applying the distortion to an acoustic guitar (that one's generally a no-go in real life as well) is actually a rather poor decision, especially since there are no power chords to speak of in the palette editor. Those of you wishing to rock out will probably find this game a little hard to get into.

There are also a number of advanced features that one could choose to nitpick over. I personally found the mute picking to be rather useless, as the upstroke still sounds open, and the fact that you can only play full open chords can be limiting. I also found that the transition from one chord to the next was kind of jarring, and the metronome is just as annoying as a real one. The mask feature, on the other hand, is an absolute life saver. It allows you to keep your existing palette, but transpose every chord up or down a set number of steps, kind of like using a capo, or slack-tuning, saving you all the hassle of re-editing your palette in order to change keys. Of course, if you're a beginner, this will probably mess you up more than help.

Overall, does all the ambition and innovation translate into a fun game? I say it does, because there's few things in life as satisfying as strumming a tune at 2:30 in the morning without annoying the roommates, or jamming alone in the back seat of a van while the driver insists on playing nothing but Garth Brooks for hours on end. It also helps if you don't think of this as either a game, or as a emulated guitar, but as some kind of hybrid instrument. For it's portability, and the fact that it plays more like a real instrument than any other game (guitar hero included) I would have to give this a 6 out of 10. Just don't expect this game to make you a better guitar player.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 12/06/07

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