by Jin Lovelace, HSM team writer & filmmaker

Earlier this year I had the privilege to log into my SCEE Home account and experience, in my humble opinion, the best public party space of all time (in a long time),  Hed Kandi. I wrote an article (http://www.twilighttouchinc.com/2013/03/hed-kandi-social-experience.html) about my endeavors, and — as of this writing — the space has been restored with new items while retaining the signature music tracks by the record label.

What was great about Hed Kandi was aside from its renown for the real-life beach parties and raves with a very exciting atmosphere, it also targeted a mature crowd who was looking for nothing more but fun. The colorful aesthetics laid in the space were gorgeous and helped draw me in with the crowd. Accessible, if you will.

So I thought this would be the absolutely same experience when the public space, Dave Guetta World (by Music unlimited and Vidzone) was announced for its release in PlayStation Home, with the dazzling music and enriched, colorful schematics that would be a bit accessible to the wondering mind here.

Much like Hed Kandi before, I never knew who David Pierre Guetta was. For those that don’t know, he’s a French house music producer and a DJ who has sold over six- million albums and fifteen-million singles worldwide. While I’m not entirely into mainstream music, he does some exceptional work. What I look for when it comes to music is how it can relate to me without being just another trendy piece, especially when one creates a public space surrounding the styles of house-style instrumentals.

After finishing up some projects, I met up with one of my friends from Twilight Touch and decided to hit up the public space. Upon touching down, I’ve noticed many things that grasped my attention. The colors and details of the club are your typical outside party fare: reminiscent of the Singstar VIP Lounge, added to the detail of the lavish flora surrounding the upstairs. There’s some life to the space, indeed, and it’s quite attractive. What you’ll also notice immediately is the loneliness you’ll start to feel due to the stage right in front of you, full of people dancing to the looping–yet seriously annoying–Vidzone advertisement. Normally when you step foot through the double doors of any nightclub or a party, you would hear some music relating to the dancing that’s around.

Good music, at that.

Alas, that wasn’t the case for me.

Navigating around the space itself wasn’t arduous at all. You have your entryway to the music stage where everyone is clogging up the space, some lounging areas, and a second floor balcony where you can peer down to the underlings just joshing away to the beautiful sounds of the Vidzone looping ad on the tele-tron. Yes, Jlisbeth and I were dancing to the sweet tunes, enjoying a discussion of birds and how she’s a known bird whisperer in her community, which immediately recalled some scary images of the stereotypical scary cat lady. The social impact that we also experienced was your mundane approaches of the dashing “Hello” and riveting “u r sexy” followed by some laughable (if not contorted) private messages.

Upon approaching the stage area, I’ve noticed a few things that were rather intriguing to my eyes; one that made me–I kid you not–spill my Sun Chips on the floor.

Seeing there are a few public (and personal) spaces that features dancing Non-Player Characters (NPCs), you would think featuring an enticingly dressed female dancer to draw on the eyes would be coupled with a set of sultry skills to lure in the wondering eyes and surround their cages that they dwell. Come on now, never have I ever seen a great set of six-pack abs on a female avatar (I smell an idea, developers) with a decently fitted assembly of club parcels that shows off that athletic torso. The thing is — and again this is something that I wish I was joking on — I honestly thought the person inside the birdcage was an actual female avatar using the Rock ‘n Roll dance move.

In actuality, it was an NPC that were doing the default dance moves; one using the aforementioned and the other doing…

Seriously get ready for it:

The very alluring Cabbage Patch. 

Yes, enticing the eyes with the Cabbage Patch dance will guarantee you attention.

To conclude that whomever thought of this being the safest idea to assure that possible adolescent –pubescent — teenagers and narrow-minded individuals that would moan at the sight of a provocative dance set donning said provocative clothing by dressing her in a bolero jacket, a bikini top, and some tacky jeans gets the kudos for the worst idea award in the “lacking imagination” category. I can see the idea on paper, but it was better left as a jotted note that should had been in the trash.

But the rebuttal of this wasn’t just these two lovely, hard-working birdcage dancers that were inputting more moves than the lovely Hellfire Dancers that everyone was ranting on about at one point, oh sweet lord no. To my admittance I’ve only been into a club establishment where any featured dancers were to use any sort of podium to let loose some wild moves, it’s to at least garner the attention of the allured onlookers that have waived every surrounding recreation in favor of your spin, kick, and thrust of your anatomy.

Yes, I seriously found this to be hilarious. Take a closer look and you’ll see that there is a Pole Dancer just looping around the metal pillar of hopes and dreams. The choice of fashion for this NPC is a bit skimpier than your caged dancers, which would seem fitting to complement the rod it’s swinging on.

The grand finale of my time in this space was the most disappointing factor of my time there: the music. Or, at first, the lack thereof. Not only will you take heed to the looping advertisement on the big screen, but you’ll be under the first impression that it’s the only available song piece blurting out of your sound system in your house and into your ears, where you’ll wish it never traversed to. However, if one were to take a small detour away from the “gorgeous” dancers, you’ll then run into a DJ turntable, which — when activating the device — will take you into a few options. Two records are available on the machine and you’re only graced with three tracks from David’s album archives. Finally discovering that you can play music here (and non-generic tracks existing here in this said space), I thought at least I would find interest in David Guetta World.

No, not at all. Instead, I was only given three tracks which don’t suit my musical taste and with the worst type of mixing styles to ever combine. Even the meta-game of DJing isn’t as accurate as one would think, though I didn’t expect for it to be too accurate at all. The musical choices didn’t suit my eardrums and the language laced in those songs created yet another rebuttal to the type of dancers that are dancing away in those cages. I can tell you this though: at least they were better dressed than everyone that were available there.

In seriousness, I’m all for a party space and I’m more than down for something that has aesthetic appeal when it comes to music, social entertainment, and promotion. While I’m happy to see this space finally touching down on the SCEA Home servers, the sheer likeness of the Hed Kandi space is just too obvious even down to the rewards (an LMO, Headphones, a T-Shirt, and Light Sticks with a design that looks much akin to something that is far beyond androgynous for me to even state). Lets just say that I never went to the Hed Kandi space; the lack of charm and quality music along with the choice of music and promotional ads on the video doesn’t say anything about David Guetta. In fact, it doesn’t even say who he is or what he’s about.

And that’s a disappointment when it comes to introducing a space that at least allows freedom of dancing expression. I guess at least we have a legitimate party place to showcase our moves. Maybe it’ll get better overall. Only time will tell, I suppose.

That, my friends, is my David Guetta experience.

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