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> Results: Jam Sessions
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The ESRB Says
Mild Lyrics: GamerDad saw occasional words like 'hell' and 'damn' in the lyrics. Mild Suggestive Themes: This is pretty much the same thing as the lyrics and also a couple of background images. There are plenty of music and rhythm games on pretty much every platform - this isn't one of them. This is a whole different sort of experience: a software guitar simulator that allows you to play along with several songs or create and record your own. And while it is a fairly limited experience in terms of prefabricated content, it is an open book that is a blast to explore and play around with and can teach anyone a little something about music and playing the guitar. The concept is simple - the D-pad controls the chord being played based on the direction you hold the button, and there is a virtual 'strum zone' in the center of the DS touch screen. There are eight chords available at any time based on the four cardinal directions and diagonals, with eight additional chords accessible by holding down the L button while simultaneously pressing the D-pad. Strumming is both velocity and positionally sensitive, and the sensitivity can be changed. One basic but important thing is that skill matters - if you are familiar with playing a guitar you will be making very pleasant sounding music from the start, and if you don't than you will quickly learn. The basic sound is a simulated acoustic guitar, but the software features a fairly sophisticated software effects processing module that has distortion, reverb, phaser, flanger and chorus effects with a range of controls appropriate to more sophisticated sound module software. Of course, there are limitations - there could be more songs, and every song could have a demo to help learn how to play. And it is limited in that you are only playing chords, and the selection of chords doesn't cover a wide enough range to express the full spectrum of possibilities - but it represents the most common types of chord groups very well. But overall it accomplishes what it sets out to do extremely well and is just a blast to play around with.  
Y'know with kids' music these days - you can never understand what the singer says! OK, kidding aside, Jam Sessions is a guitar simulator that has only one cautionary note - a few of the songs contain words such as 'hell' and 'damn' that are full readable, whether or not you can discern them in the original song. Aside from that this is an entirely positive and family friendly 'game' - everyone can share in making music, learning music, and just having fun!
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