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What Instruments Are There on Jam Sessions for DS?

Nintendo DS "Jam Sessions" is a music video game that is designed to be more educational than "Rock Band" or similar titles. Although there are songs found on the game, "Jam Sessions" focuses more on free-play options and the ability to create your own sound with the game's chord palette. Although the game offers a wide range of customization options, there is only one instrument offered for play in "Jam Sessions."

Guitar
- The Nintendo DS "Jam Sessions" game offers a digital representation of an acoustic guitar's strum bar that you can use to play the game's digital guitar. There are no other instruments supported by this video game, although the packaging invites you to sing while playing the guitar. To play the guitar, choose four different chords to correspond to a directional arrow on the DS's D-Pad; you can also configure an additional four chords for the DS's shoulder buttons. Press a directional arrow or shoulder button to choose a chord and then drag the Nintendo DS stylus across the strum bar to produce sound. The sound in "Jam Sessions" is affected by how hard and fast you drag the stylus and whether you strum up or down on the strum bar.
Game Modes
- "Jam Sessions" for the DS has four different game modes to choose from. Beginners can use the Tutorial mode to learn how to set different chords and use the various mixing options found in the game. Free Play mode gives you a choice of chords and the ability to play them however you'd like. You can choose Songs mode to select a popular song to play along to, including Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" or Bob Marley's "No Woman, No Cry." You can also choose Warm Up mode to watch the computer play one of the previously recorded songs before trying it yourself.
Music Effects
- You can customize the music produced by the "Jam Sessions" guitar in numerous ways. You can create a chord palette for the Free Play mode from 120 different chords loaded onto the game. Or, you can alter the music effects by selecting "Options" from the Pause menu. You can choose from preset effects packages or adjust the various settings, including distortion, delay, tremolo, flange and chorus. If you want, you can save a created music effects palette as a preset to be used during future "Jam Sessions" play.
Customization Options
- You can also choose to customize various aspects of the game's appearance. These options are accessible through the "Theme" option in the Pause menu. On the left side of the Theme screen, you can scroll through the options to choose a background style to appear on the DS screen while you play. Further, you can choose a different strum bar style by scrolling through the bar on the right side of the screen. These options affect only the game's look, not the game play itself.

Nintendo DS