Recently, we receive an invite to try out JamLegend.

JamLegend is a new product in the works by Launchbox Digital. The basic idea of JamLegend is to bring interactive music gaming online for free! The basic ideas used by huge titles such as Guitar Hero, Rock Band and Rock Revolutions, but no console required… just an internet connection (and a keyboard that will become your 5-string guitar!). The title included three levels of difficulty. Easy, Medium and Hard. As in Rock Band and Guitar Hero, Easy mode is just frets 1 through 3, Medium 1 through 4 and naturally, hard uses all 5.

JamLegend has gone as far as allowing real-time showdowns with other users online, as well as turn-based duels. The music library is designed to become virtually unlimited as bands are encouraged to upload their music to promote themselves through this very ambitious and well polished project! There are currently 37 artists with anywhere from 1 to 11 tracks of their work available to play! These artists include: Alternative Rock band Kill The Alarm from New York City, Double Stamp out of Claremont, California and Blue Judy from Los Angeles, California, just to name a few.

JamLegend has even taken this project as far as creating a list of achievements to acquire during your keyboard rockin’! Utilizing the same idea as Microsoft’s Achievements and Sony’s Trophy system, you will earn “Groupies”! The Achievement list is broken down into 4 categories. The first is Scoring Achievements. These are as basic as getting a 50 note streak or 50,000 points in any song, and as challenging as getting a 1250 note streak or scoring more than 300,000 points in a song. The second category is Song Achievements which include: Play 100 times, Beat 20 Songs on Medium and Beat Any Song. The third category is Social Achievements which are based on completing invites of friends or uploading an avatar. The final category is Multiplayer Achievements. These achievements are gained by playing and/or winning X amount of duels.

My impressions of JamLegend are very promising! To begin with, I’ve heard some great music from bands I had no clue existed (and may very well be part of my music library in the near future). Eagerly awaiting more tunes to come aboard that fit my musical preference, but what is available is not bad at all. To be a bit nitpicky, using keyboard, especially on Hard, is not so easy to due. shifting up and down to play is nowhere near as easy as it is on Rock Band or Guitar Hero III Guitar peripherals. (but then again, having a mega large multimedia keyboard where the F1-F5 and/or 1-5 keys are not quite near the edge of the unit doesn’t help much either) I’ve still been able to complete songs with decent scores and over 150 note streaks, and have not found myself bored at any time. I will continue to work on pegging out the achievements and challenging random people to duels on hard difficulty!