Work that wrist baby!
The customisation features in Jam Sessions are fairly deep and go as far as allowing you to morph the sound of the guitar to create the required effect, such as adding distortion, reverb, chorus, low/high pass, tremolo and more by using sliders. This may seem a bit daunting to those who are new to playing music, but the interface of Jam Sessions is so simple that you’ll soon be experimenting with different sounds to get that required effect.In addition, you're able to create your own chords, detune you guitar (ideal for playing many tunes) and utilise the Tutorial Mode, which learns how to use every feature in the game.
In terms of an actual game, Jam Sessions offers very little. There are a number of pre-loaded tunes that you can jam along to as you follow the scrolling sheet music on the top screen, but disapprovingly only 10 of the 17 tunes have any midi-accompaniment. Basically, this means that if you don't know the actually songs you'll get little enjoyment out of playing them. There are some bizarre song choices in the list, which I've never heard of: Cheap Trick's "Surrender", Janis Joplin's "Me and Bobby McGee", The Fray's "Over my head" and Avril Lavigne's "I'm With You" to name just a few. There are a few decent tunes, such as Coldplay's "Yellow" and Bob Marley's "No Woman No Cry", but without the finger picking that features in the latter, it's extremely difficult to get even close to making it sound like Marley's classic.
This is where the main problem lies with Jam Sessions. Without being able to play individual notes, having another instrument playing alongside your strums, or singing along with the tune, it’s fairly difficult for anyone other than yourself to know what you are playing (unless of course the tune has a distinctive riff).
But, despite this limitation, Jam Sessions does exactly what it says on the tin. It's a learning tool after all and, like any musical instrument, if you've got the time and the patience to master it, the rewards are there for the taking.
Pros
Easier to learn than the guitar
Loads of features
Smooth interface
Cons
It's a learning tool
Hard to master
Weird choice of pre-loaded tunes
Can't play individual notes
An innovative piece of software; Jam Session is a superb learning tool.
HEXUS Awards
Jam Sessions- DS
