You wouldn’t think it, but even the passionate throes of MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice merging in an unholy embrace is slightly tantalizing. The fact that I can get into Fergie’s wretched vocals over my beloved Benny Benassi is a testament to the skills of the DJs. I wish I could go on about all the different mixes, because there are some fantastic ones, including amazing work from Daft Punk and DJ Shadow. Of course, some don’t work as well, and sound like Activision threw the leftovers from their other games into a busted trash compactor. This includes pretty much every mix with Gwen Stefani or Gorillaz, except, strangely enough, the one mash-up featuring both. Go figure.

I’ve already had a few friends and colleagues complain about the lack of pure “classics,” in the form of full, untouched tracks from DJs like Aphex Twin, Oakenfold, Justice, or DJ Qbert. You need to get a real deck if you can keep up with Qbert. Using single, premade tracks would limit DJ Hero to beat-matching, like the ill-fated Beatmania (a.k.a. DDR for your hands). Using mash-ups makes sense, because being a DJ is all about bringing music and people together in new and unexpected ways. There’s my Hallmark moment of the day.

I have been having an amazing time playing DJ Hero and collecting stars to unlock new characters and accessories, but without the details that I’ve come to expect from a publisher that is synonymous with the music genre. It’s like I’m back in 2005. DJ Hero has no training mode, which is a serious hindrance to mastering the highest level tracks. Unlocking them couldn’t be easier or more unfulfilling, because even though there are five difficulties, the game doesn’t make distinctions when awarding high-scores or stars. DJ Hero is a bit of a risky venture, so it’s my guess that Activision is trying to make the game as accessible to everyone as possible. If that means dumbing down a few aspects to ensure future content, I can deal with it.

Two-person multiplayer, both online and off, lets DJs go head to head for scores, or tag-team with a guitar on specially made mixes. It’s functional, but completely uninspired. The host is the sole creator of the set-list, with room for one to eight tracks. If you’re joining a game, there is no way to see what songs are coming up or even how many, in case you need a short set. You can’t even tell who your opponent is until the end-statistics appear. I was going to mention the lack of Leaderboards, but I finally found them, buried in a sub-section of the Options menus.

DJ Hero will only give you a glimpse into the realities of mixing and scratching, with some of the coolest mash-ups I’ve ever heard to entertain along the way. It probably won’t convert you unless you’re already into electronic music or hip-hop though, and I mean real hip-hop. Not that clubber garbage flooding the airwaves. For someone like me, who would rather get down with a set of tables than a six-string, DJ Hero is nearly a perfect medium for my fantasies of scratch-stardom.