Hannah Montanna: Music Jam preview of the DS music rhythm game starring the Disney Channel icon

Pre-Order Hannah Montan: Music Jam for the Nintendo DSThe Disney Channel star and tween pop icon, Hannah Montana, has a new DS rhythm music game coming called Hannah Montana: Music Jam. In the game players use the touch-screen to play various instruments, including guitar, bass, or drums. With guitar for example, you simply strum the strings by moving your stylus across them, changing chords as you go by pressing buttons on the directional pad.

The single player story mode has players taking control of Miley Cyrus‘ character in the Hanna Montana TV show, Miley Stewart or Stewart’s alter ego, pop sensation Hannah Montana, as you take on a rival pop singer, named Savannah Star, in the music jam video contest. The storyline also involves the problem of Miley having her friends being stolen away by a new girl at the school.

During both the single-player and multiplayer games though, the real star is the musical instruments.

Miley Cyrus

There are two single player modes, a story mode and a free-play mode. And a multiplayer mode. During either of these modes, you can choose to play either the guitar, bass or drums.

As mentioned above, the guitar has you strumming the strings with the touch-screen. You can choose from three preloaded chord sets assigned to the D pad, and you can switch between chord sets by pressing the face buttons. You can strum the strings normally, or play individual strings simply by touching them. You can also switch between acoustic and electric guitar on the fly with just a tap on the touch screen (at least in recording mode, more on that in sec.)

Playing bass is similar to guitar, as you’d expect. While playing drums, the full set appears on the lower screen, complete with cymbals, high hat, toms, snare, and kick drum. Because the DS’ touch screen doesn’t support two points of contact at once though, it seems like you’ll need to keep your drum lines fairly rudimentary.

One of the most impressive features of the game however is the recording mode. Here you can either play to one of the pre-set songs, or you can record your own compositions using the built-in recording tools.

When recording a song, you simply start with a tempo track and then proceed to lay down chords with the rhythm guitar. You then can follow-up with the bass and drums, switching instruments on the fly.

But by far the coolest part of all this is the multiplayer mode. You can play and record with up to three of your friends wirelessly as you go. When recording, all four instruments will record to the host’s DS, and that person will be able to share the final song with other players. A fan-made video showing pics of the game
The game will also include a music video creator, which will let you put together videos for songs, complete with backdrop shots and multiple angles to choose from (as well as the ability to share completed videos with your friends).

Hannah Montana: Music Jam is set for release later this year, and even though it’s targeted at the tween-something set and makes use of the Disney Channel Hannah Montana TV show license, there’s no denying how cool the features in this game are, and it may still appeal to those looking for a fun music creation tool on the DS.