by
Ted Kritsonis
Faze Video Game Editor

The main issue that usually comes with a game like this is its playability. With a different developer this time around (MixMax), MTV Music Generator 3 sports a brand new interface, which makes an immediate impact compared to previous versions of the franchise.

Instead of the confusion and frustration of the last version of the game, this one is tied up nicely by using coloured buttons, visible labels and straightforward controls to make your life easier as you build your remixed masterpiece. The Remixer allows you to dismantle and reassemble one of the featured tracks in the game, while the Studio can really shake things up by letting you piece together a track from scratch. The Tutorial is an excellent addition, showing some step-by-step aspects to the game.

In both the PS2 and Xbox versions, there are only 10 tracks to choose from, with the likes of Sean Paul’s Get Busy and OutKast’s The Way U Move among other hip hop, trance and dance songs. Considering that the number of tracks at your disposal is pretty short at only 10 tracks, putting together your own beats is where a lot of the fun is here. You can also rip elements of songs from your own CD’s. The process is tedious on the PS2, but fairly smooth on the Xbox since you don’t have to keep switching CD’s all the time (as long as you’ve got tracks saved on the Xbox’s hard drive). You can only rip an 8-second clip from a song, and it will show as only one bar in the studio, which makes it somewhat difficult to incorporate it properly onto a track you’re working on. Many times when I tried to do it, the clip sounded way off after applying it onto the track I was working on.

Hopefully Codemasters will consider adding new songs to MTV Music Generator 3 through Xbox Live because these 10 tracks can get old fast after working on them. And forget about singing karaoke, as there’s no mic support.

But with all that said, Codemasters pulled off an impressive experience here. There’s no doubt that studio-type music games like this are better on the PC thanks to the keyboard-mouse functionality, but for both the PS2 and Xbox, MTV Music Generator 3 is a great way to realize some musical creativity on the consoles.

Publisher:
Codemasters

Platform:
PS2/XBox

Rating: 8/10