Asking Above & Beyond if they’d play and then share their thoughts on DJ Hero — a new computer game designed to replicate the fun and excitement of being a club DJ — is roughly equivalent to tossing Andy McNab a Super Soaker and then requesting a ballistics report.

Above & Beyond is Tony McGuinness, Jono Grant and Paavo Siljamaki, a trance triumvirate who run their own label, have been voted Best Group at the International Dance Music Awards and who have DJed to a crowd of a million people in Rio. DJ Hero is a plastic toy you plug into a PlayStation, a fact that hits home once I’m buzzed into their East London studio and find them in a room full of miscellaneous bits of technical equipment that relate to being actual, proper, successful DJs.

The intimidation doesn’t last long. The trio fall upon the replica turntable like raptors, breezing through the Christmas morning make-it-work-Dad! phase, briefly admiring the high-gloss introduction (featuring a mood-setting remix of Dizzee Rascal’s Fix Up, Look Sharp) before attacking the first tutorial. “This is where we show we can’t actually DJ,” Grant mutters.

The proto-DJ hero Grandmaster Flash acts as the in-game tutorand explains the basics: three coloured streams represent different sources of music, and they travel along a spinning record. To control the three streams of music, you press the three corresponding coloured buttons on your controller. It is, Above & Beyond quickly realise, nothing like being a DJ.

“Oh ... they’ve done it like this,” Siljamaki says, while Grant plays his way though a tutorial that has him mixing Queen’s Another One Bites the Dust with Daft Punk’s Da Funk with minimal effort. “I thought it was going to be like beat-match mixing [the insanely skilful method of creating seamless mixes used by real DJs], but it’s the same as Guitar Hero.”

There are, indeed, more than a few similarities in design and execution with rock-based titles such as Guitar Hero and Rock Band, which is no doubt deliberate. But as the tutorials progress and the relentless Queen/Daft Punk mash-up sends everyone into a mild trance, the game’s charms begin to reveal themselves, especially when we arrive at the “scratching” and “crossfading” tutorials. By cautiously wiggling the rotating plastic “vinyl” controller, I sound as if I’m Mix Master Mike rather than a 13-year-old covertly ruining his mum’s Peter, Paul and Mary LPs. It’s blissful, and even the pros laugh uproariously when they give it a go.

“That is brilliant,” Grant hoots. “Proper play-it-drunk-after-the-pub stuff. And in terms of scratching, that’s getting close to actual DJ-ing.”

McGuinness mentions that the turntable feels “a little loose” and points out that, so far, the game seems to focus on hip-hop style and methods. “Tricksy stuff, mixing between records in the middle, scratching at the end. But for the purposes of the game, it’s probably more exciting because it means you’re doing more stuff. It’s not like you’re having to do a mix and then wait around for five minutes.”

Graduating from the tutorials, we have a go at playing a gig. Our DJ is a muscleman in a wrestling mask who, under the control of McGuinness, has the packed crowd in delirious rapture to a mix of Cyprus Hill’s Insane and Classics IV’s Spooky. We decide to see what happens if our DJ gets everything wrong, Siljamaki hitting keys at random, scratching over breaks, missing beats. The virtual crowd still dance like loons.

“By now, the manager would have called you a cab and kicked you out,” McGuinness says with a grin. “Plus, if you want the real DJ experience, you need to set your alarm for 3.15 am and then try playing it half an hour later.”

“It’s a shame the crowd don’t seem to change their reactions,” Grant says. “Because as a DJ, that’s your ultimate goal ... to get a response.”

They decide to play another show in a different venue. “A double-up!” they chime. (This must mean playing two gigs in one night. I don’t ask because I don’t want to sound stupid.) Now the DJ is playing to a car park from inside what looks like an ice-cream van, while a digitally enhanced dancing girl gyrates next to him (“She looks like she's probably from LA,” Siljamaki says).

You get the impression, from the people now popping their heads into the room, that the three of them need to be going somewhere soon, but for the time being they seem content to keep playing. Eventually they file out. McGuinness offers a final analysis.

“I must admit, when I saw it on the website I thought, that’s not going to be any fun. The actual physical hand skills are completely different to real life, apart from crossfading and scratching, but it is great to have a go on,” he says. “Now, if there was a progressive trance version, it would be a lot harder. Imagine doing all that, but at 138 beats per minute.”

DJ Hero is released by Activision on October 27

Above & Beyond’s album Anjunabeats Volume 7 is out now. They play at the Top 100 DJs Party at Ministry Of Sound on Oct 28. www.aboveandbeyond.nu

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