Harmonix is the Boston-based studio responsible for the Guitar Hero and Rock Band series that, during the 2000s, filled front rooms (and, later, attics) with plastic instruments used to role-play rock musicians by means of intricate rhythmic tests. At the height of the genre’s popularity, Harmonix worked with the Beatles’ estate to convert the band’s back catalogue to the interactive format. Consumer weariness toward plastic video game peripherals, however, precipitated a crisis. Fuser is Harmonix’s attempt to reinvigorate the music game it once popularised, this time by casting its player as a DJ tasked with mixing and splicing assorted hits to delight a virtual audience.
This is a far more creative proposition than the Simon-says format of earlier rhythm games, where your job was merely to strike buttons in time with the music. Here, you’re free to take the constituent parts of various songs – typically drums, bass, melody and vocals – and interweave them however you like, creating harmonious new hybrids.
The chance to pair the vocals from Rage Against the Machine’s Killing in the Name with the acoustic guitar part of Dolly Parton’s Jolene, the bassline from the Clash’s Rock the Casbah and the keyboard stabs of Carly Rae Jepsen’s Call Me Maybe is unexpected and preposterously enjoyable. It’s a lot to learn and manage: each song has a timeline featuring coloured dots that indicate the optimal points at which to, say, trigger the chorus vocals, fade tracks in and out and even improvise your own rhythms and instrumental melodies on top of the backing track. Once these tools are mastered, however, not only is it tremendous fun role-playing as a stadium-filling DJ, it’s also technically possible to stage a crowd-pleasing performance at an actual party – an opportunity that will, for now, have to wait for more communal times.
