More details, plus exclusive screengrabs from the show (taped live before a studio audience, like "Cheers") on the jump.

"30 Minutes to Midnight" airs at, well, 30 minutes to midnight US Eastern time tonight. The user bands are from the Xbox 360 community (Earth Wind and Centaur! Die! In a Fire, and Here Comes a New Challenger). In addition to playing straight up, there will also be a challenge mode in which they have to play the notes from memory with none on the screen. So we'll see if Rock Band really has taught anyone to rock out.

Here's the one-man band:

... aaaand a "drum-off"

The game, which has been in development for nearly two years, is expected to hit shelves next summer and will likely include the ability to use Guitar Hero guitars for versus mode face-offs.

The controller, key to the game's success, has been through nearly a half-dozen iterations.

In the latest form, the device looks a lot like a simplified DJ Deck. There is a platter for scratching which will act like the strum toggle on a Guitar Hero guitar. Above the platter are three buttons for sampling. The controller also includes a cross fader and a sound effects dial which will act like the whammy bar in Guitar Hero.

Instead of flowing the musical notes down a guitar neck, DJ Hero will flow the music down and around a virtual record in a half arc. Either left top to middle bottom if you are left handed, or right top to middle bottom if you are right handed.

To play you will have to either hold a sample button and scratch, just hold a button or just scratch as the neon icons flow around the virtual vinyl.

Currently the wireless controller has grooves molded into the bottom so it will sit comfortably in a player's lap, though the team is also looking into legs for the deck so gamers can play while standing up.

The game in its current form features all mash-ups, think Beyonce Vs Jimi Hendrix, 50 cent Vs Beastie Boys. If they can nail the interface and get licensing for the music this could be a mammoth hit. Then again I love mash-ups.

*That's not a picture of the controller.

What got me thinking about this was a stroll through Disney Interactive's E3 booth, where I peeped Ultimate Band for Wii and DS. In the Wii edition, players can pick one of four band roles - frontman, guitar, drums and bass - and simulate the instrument of choice through what's essentially air guitar using the Wii remote and Nunchuk. The frontman role focuses more on aerobic performance - think Namco's new We Cheer or the new Rabbids title, to which I saw a lot of people my age or older joyfully disco-dancing on the show floor.

It looked challenging enough that I'd want to have it if it were more my sort of music - no thanks on the Jonas Brothers, and I've had my fill of Weezer's Beverly Hills. Track list is decent for the tween set, though, and in a cool twist, since players can pick either a male or female vocalist, there are both male and female-voiced versions of the songs, swapping the song's romantic context appropriately (like "Fell in Love With A Boy" instead of "Fell in Love With A Girl."

The DS version's rhythm-action gameplay looked innovative and promising enough that I really wished that they'd just aimed it at our audience stylistically and let us have at those mechanics. We'd never have known it was meant to be a kids' title.

In the DS Ultimate Band, you navigate the different venues via a touch-screen map. Once you choose ones, here's how playing goes down — you've got the six strings of your guitar on the touch screen, and little D-pad icons rain down from the top screen into the touch screen indicating what direction you should be holding when you tap the string it hovers over. It looks like it works surprisingly well, and gets quite complex on harder modes.

And as long as you're hitting the notes, there's no penalty for strumming extra notes — between chords, if you're feeling noodly, you can riff your own little solos and extra twangs just for your own entertainment.

Rhythm-action can be a bit hit or miss on the DS — since the astounding (and yet simple) success that was Ouendan and EBA, I've seen many other approaches attempted and none that I really think are a worthwhile alternative to the good old timed beat tapping. But beat-strumming along with the buttons looked really appealing. It made me wish that they'd picked a trendy art style, added a silly narrative, and gotten either some unintentionally hilarious or some more grown-up tracks, and pointed it squarely at rhythm-addicted core gamers.

Disney caters to the 8-14 year old set. But their DS rhythm game appealed to me at least as far as core mechanics, while their kids' title for Wii looks like the exact sort of gameplay we're seeing from the publishers who normally serve our audience. Makes you wonder — what is a "kids' game," really?

Like Crecente said, it leans heavily on its art style, cool mini-fig style creatures that are really artsy and look vivid and fantastic on the DS. The basic gameplay might lead one to believe it's a kids' title, but since higher difficulty levels advance in complexity, I have to say with cautious optimism that I'd probably enjoy it too.

Particularly, I liked the character designs. Pics of just a few of them, plus printable papercraft (!) after the jump.

As Crecente said:

The stylus-driven game is broken down into a number of themed-worlds, each with it's own team of Zubo that you can befriend through tasks and mini-games to add to your team of three. All said there will be 55 different Zubo in the game and all of them will have unique attacks during combat.

I'm a big Elite Beat Agents nerd, which means I just love to tap the screen whenever circles converge, and that's what Zubo wants you to do. It has some basic RPG elements - different team members have different attributes and thus their individual techniques will be strong against some enemies and weak against others. Pick a character from your team to attack, choose what moves they'll do, and then a silhouette line will start converging on your character as it dance-attacks the enemy. Tap at the right time and the attack is successful.

The reps brought headphones so that I could hear the music that Crecente didn't get a chance to hear too closely during his demo, and it's all pretty interesting, various stuff all synchronized to beat well. And the gameplay does sync up with the beat, meaning like with EBA, you'll need to use your ears more than your eyes to time things ideally.

It's not, admittedly, as fast or frenetic looking as you might expect a challenging rhythm game to be, but the music and visual style are entertaining enough that it just might close that gap. I'd advise not writing this one off as a kids' game just yet.

Zelnick's answer? "Possibly," but Zelnick said there's nothing currently in Take-Two's schedule that fits that bill. For his part, Zelnick is waiting to see how much staying power the trend has, and whether to define it as a "music genre" or a "rhythm genre."

Zelnick said such considerations are "terribly important when you invest in AAA properties that you expect people to play for over 20 hours."

Zelnick has good reason to demonstrate his restraint to his investors, of course - right now his mandate is to prove that they're better off sticking with his guiding hand than with EA's.

However, when if there were Xbox 360 games that iNiS itself is in development on, Yano guardedly confirmed: "Yeah. We are currently working on a title. I can't really get into it more than, 'Yes, we're working on something!'" No further details on publisher or genre were available for the game.

iNiS' Yano Confirms Xbox 360 Project, Engine Development [Gamasutra]

Moero! Nekketsu Rhythm Damashii Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan 2, the folow up to the truly awesome Ouendan! is now available for pre-order through PlayAsia.com for $48.90 plus $2.80 shipping. The page has it listed as being available on May 17th and I can hardly contain my excitement.

If you decide to get it, I hope you don't have the same issues with PlayAsia as I did when I ordered the original Ouendan! and for some unknown reason they sent me Elite Beat Agents instead. All in all it took me two months to finally get the game that I ordered, but I have to say, It was completely worth the wait. Flynn De Marco

Moero! Nekketsu Rhythm Damashii Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan 2 [PlayAsia]
[via the bbps]

Kicking and punching? That should stay all in the mind.

In addition, the NanaOn-Sha staffer says that the rhythm genre he helped create is on the decline in Japan. That's in contrast to current Western tastes where music titles like Boogie, Rock Band and Guitar Hero are still hot. What's contributing to this downfall? Flat panel TVs, he says, and their delayed displays.

More of Matsuura's GO3 musings at Gamespot. Michael McWhertor

GO3: Make less-violent games: PaRappa creator [Gamespot]

Upon looking over the games I've been playing lately, I realized that quite a number of rhythm games have been creeping their way into my collection. Ouendan!, DDR (I'm trying to shed a few pounds, so sue me), Guitar Hero 1 & 2, Donkey Konga, Space Channel 5. Now, these are definitely not games I play all the time, but I like them because they provide a great counterpoint to the often long winded games I love to play like Twilight Princess and Final Fantasy III. After wandering around the same part of the game map for an hour or two trying to level up, it's somewhat of a relief to take a break and pound out the beats on a couple of Ouendan! songs. They are quick (but not easy!) and can be played for a little while and then put down without fear of forgetting what side quest you were on when you saved last.

Rhythm games are definitely an acquired taste. Many people find them frustrating, although I wonder if that says more about the lack of rhythm in the player than the actual quality of the game. I know that for me, my experiences with FPSs is woefully small, not because I don't care for them per say, but more because I'm completely lame at playing them. It's also true that certain rhythm games have wider appeal than others. Take Guitar Hero, for example, which seems to have transcended the genre and appeals to an extremely wide audience.

So, let's hear it for the rhythm games! Are you an Ulala or an Ouendan? A Guitar God or a Bongo Beater? Become a part of the rhythm nation and let us know what your favorite rhythm titles are in the comments! Flynn De Marco

By finishing up an old dusty turntable, mounting a optical mouse on it instead of a regular pickup and then connecting it to a Flash-interface, our group developed a game controlled by scratching.

Sadly, we're not aware of any video, nor the original Flash software portion, but it's cool regardless. It makes me a little sad that I never got to try out Sega's Crackin' DJ (and that DJ Portable Max for the PSP is still so pricey). Guess I'll go back to scratching various body parts as a pathetic replacement for actual digital scratching fun.

Thanks for the tip, Mike. Michael McWhertor

Wicki! Wicki! [via Playthrough]