Um Jammer Lammy

I played PaRappa the Rapper and PaRappa the Rapper 2 almost a decade ago and loved both of them a great deal. But somehow, I wasn't even aware of this spin-off in which you wield a guitar instead of a microphone until a couple of months ago when Sweeney brought it to my attention. Thanks, Sween! And when I went to Amazon.com just to see if I could even find a copy, I was delighted to find that new copies were selling for a buck-fifty. What an easy and obvious purchase, right? Unfortunately, for one reason or another, this game was an absolute pain in the ass to play and to beat, and simply wasn't very enjoyable whatsoever. Dammit, Sween! I popped it into my PS3 after getting home from work and immediately set it to "easy" mode. Hey, don't judge me - I wanted to enjoy the songs without running the risk of failing and having to restart any levels, which is something I wasn't intending on doing anyway. Boy, was I mistaken. I could not beat the first level. This is a rhythm-based game, much like Guitar Hero and DDR and the like, and everything hinges on pressing the right buttons at the right times. But even though I was pressing the right buttons at what looked to be the right times (based on an ineffective bar sprinkled with button icons), I wasn't actually hearing my notes being played at the right times. There was a very distinct delay between when I'd push the buttons and when I'd hear the notes being played. And I failed early and often. Frustrated, I went back to the options to seek out some kind of calibration setting or maybe find a tutorial. No such luck. But what I did find was the difficulty setting - not on "easy," but on "normal." What the hell? I changed it back to easy - again - and then went straight to a button that said "start game" instead of exiting the settings and starting the game from the main menu. Why that mattered, I'll never know, but apparently it did, because when I resumed play I was very clearly in "easy" mode. Now, I figured that the easier setting would keep the same fundamental gameplay while just being more forgiving on the timing aspect of the game. Again, how mistaken I was! Easy mode just straight up did away with the need to press the appropriate buttons, but still wanted me to press buttons with impeccable timing. So the game was barely any easier to play, and slightly less fun if anything. But I guess it was easier enough, because I flew through the entire game - six or seven levels, each only two or three minutes long - in under half an hour, failing only once or twice. But the experience amounted to me just wailing away on the X-button with a half-frustrated and half-apathetic candor. The songs weren't memorable, the characters weren't endearing, and the whole thing just felt lame in every area where PaRappa the Rapper felt cool and enjoyable. And have you ever tried to play a 32-bit video game on a 55-inch HD TV? Because let me tell you, it looks like shit. Actually, the TV itself may have been what was causing my timing mishaps, in hindsight. After all, modern rhythm games like Rock Band allow you to calibrate your game to your HD TV, and even though the difference is often no more than a few dozen milliseconds, it's substantial enough to make or break your gameplay. Since I was playing on an HD TV, there's no reason to assume it didn't have the same delay it would have had on a Rock Band game, but since Um Jammer came out way before HD TVs, there'd be no reason for the game to have a calibration setting, rendering me simply unable to play it with proper cadence and timing. Gyah! Oh well. I guess this is what happens when you try to play 12-year-old games with modern-day technology. Whatever. This game may have only taken me an hour or so to beat, but it was, as I'm sure you can tell, an hour riddled with frustration and disappointment. Now let's see if I can salvage this young Friday night.