Video interview: Freestyle Games' Jamie Jackson

Freestyle Games' upcoming DJ Hero is quite possibly the most refreshing addition to the music genre in quite some time. We chatted with Jamie Jackson, Creative Director of the game, to talk about introducing gamers to the world of scratch. Below is a small text excerpt of the entire video interview.

How did the DJ Hero concept come about?
About three years ago, we were looking into a concept for a hip-hop game that took into account all four pillars of hip-hop. But really quickly, we decided the DJ element was much more inspiring, and had more to do with it. It actually allowed us to branch out ... It wasn't just hip-hop, it was dance, it was electronica, it was drum and bass. And we could still bring in things like rock, and motown, and bring in all these old classic songs as well.

So how do you translate the process of DJ'ing to a videogame?
What we wanted to do was give something to the consumer that wasn't too intimidating, so we kind of took the core elements, which is scratching and cross-fading, and then we made the game based on those two things.
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Is there a freestyle mode?
There's the freestyle sample section where you can put samples in, you have samples in the game, and you can select whichever one you want and you can use them through any track. You also have the effects dial, which allows you to freestyle over the top of certain sections. It's kind of our version of the whammy bar. And then we got sections like the rewind, so you can hit a certain amount of gems and you can rewind the track at any point you want. So you can use that to show off something really cool, or you can just go back and score points.

What about downloadable content?
Absolutely, yeah ... We're going to have great DLC from day one.

DJ Hero will be available on October 27th. It's going to be available on all platforms: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii and PlayStation 2.