Jam With the Band Hands-On

SEATTLE--A handheld isn't the first place you'd expect to find a rhythm action game, especially not one that has yet to launch, but Nintendo is indeed crafting a new music title for the impending Nintendo DS tentatively titled Jam With the Band. We went hands-on with a Japanese version of the game at Nintendo's Gamer's Summit today and then thought to ourselves,"Hey, this is kinda cool."

In the current version of Jam With the Band, you can select from a handful of songs, such as a Mario medley, a Christmas music medley, and a few licensed j-pop tracks. The actual rhythm action is pretty straightforward, as you're presented with a track indicating when you should tap or hold a button (currently, any button will suffice) and when you should tap the touch screen. The key thing here is that you'll only be playing the part of one instrument in the arrangement of the song, with the others being controlled by the computer.

If you've got seven other friends with seven other DSs and seven other copies of the game, though, you can get everybody in on a wireless multiplayer version of the game in which everybody's screw-ups are readily apparent through everybody else's speakers. This seems like the mode that will be the most fun in Jam With the Band, as all the players involved will have to perform with a good deal of skill to really make the song sound like it's supposed to.

The early version of Jam With the Band that we looked at was entirely in Japanese and didn't feature any recognizable US pop music, so we'll look forward to a more-localized version in the future. Nintendo representatives talked like the rhythm action may still be undergoing some design work as well--it may get a bit more complex further on in development. We'll bring you more on the game as soon as we hear it.

For more updates on the Nintendo DS and other impressions and media, check out GameSpot's coverage of Nintendo's Gamer's Summit.