PAX 07 rock-on: Jam Sessions

When a friend alerted me that Ubisoft was demonstrating Jam Sessions near one of the lounge areas at PAX, I got over there ASAP. Jam Sessions has been one of my most anticipated DS games, and it's not even a game. In fact, it was one of the games I was really hoping to see at the show, because I am crazy about DS weirdness. I found a stage, upon (or near) which an Evil Avatar writer was strumming away, accompanied by an Ubisoft employee on bass and some guy who just showed up with a harmonica. The DS was running through a Fender amp, and sounded great. The greatest consideration for any musical instrument is how it sounds, and Jam Sessions is nearly indistinguishable from a real guitar. The guy playing had skill, as well, meaning that all in the handheld lounge were being treated to some very lovely improvised music. Until I took my turn, that is.
I tried the song mode, choosing "The Man Who Sold the World." Playing each chord, which involves holding a direction on the d-pad and strumming the touch screen, was easy enough, but as a non-musician, I got a little confused about when to play which chord. The demo, which plays through the song for you with a visual guide to the rhythm, helped a lot, but there's no way to see this information while you're playing. In addition, either there was no option to scroll up in the sheet music, or the PR rep couldn't find it. Either way, once I had started botching the song, there was no stopping it. I would have loved the option to back up, or to play just one section of the song repeatedly as practice.
The touchscreen interface is neat. Strumming across a bar at varying speeds produces chords of varying intensity and loudness, and there are separate samples for up- or down-strokes for every chord. Starting in a blue area outside the bar allows muted notes. It doesn't really feel much like a real guitar, but it feels intuitive and fun as its own instrument.
Outside of the problems with song mode, my time was spent saying "wow." The customization options are just incredible. You can map any chord to any of the eight directions on the d-pad, plus another set of eight accessible while holding the L button. You can thus set up more than enough chords for any composition you can think of, unless you're Alex Lifeson. You can also record those compositions.
The effects pedals (chorus, distortion, flanger, and others) all have dials to change their characteristics, just like the real ones. Once you've got your desired combination of effects and configurations of each, you can save it to one of six slots. What I originally thought to be an adorable novelty may turn out to be a versatile, easy-to-use instrument for some people. It's at least an incredibly fun toy.