And Now For Something Completely Different

This week the guys at Biggie asked me to write about an Xbox game. I was a little hesitant, having never written about video games before, but decided to give it a go. My first attempt is a review of Dance Party Central 2.

Next in the motion-controlled dance game fad is Dance Central 2, the latest from game developers Harmonix, but just because they’re following a fad doesn’t make it any less fun. Dance Central 2 is sure to be a hit at any friendly get-together or boozy house party.

Dance Central 2 | Xbox

Here’s a game that destroys the perception that video games are a solo, sedentary pursuit with an experience that will get anyone off their arse. You may have seen demos of the game in mega malls all over New Zealand. A half-decent solo player will soon draw a small crowd. People can’t help but stop and have a go in public. This shows us the popular appeal of the dance game. We all love dancing. And those of us with a body that doesn’t necessarily lend itself to dancing have a go anyway. It was a thorough workout that made me sweat like a farm animal, but way better than the gym. I loved it.

Like the first game, Dance Central 2 tasks you to mimick an on-screen dancer and a basic routine. The challenge is to dance and follow cue cards that slide up the side of the screen depicting moves, so you have a rough idea of what to do next. The game often asks you to do a move 2-3 times using one side of your body, then asks you to repeat the move with the other side, but making sure that every move accurately mimics the dancer to score the maximum points. The storyline - about using dance to take down a villain - is silly and needless, the songs are more important.

While Singstar Dance leaned towards a girl-friendly mix of Eighties and Naughties pop songs, Dance Central 2 has a songlist that is almost exclusively hip hop. The game comes with 44 songs ranging from the talent of Usher, Rihanna and Justin Bieber to the ‘talent’ of Chingy, B.O.B and O-Zone. The use of Flo Rida’s Can’t Handle Me is a reference to Step Up 3D, revealing to us exactly who this game is for. The one Donna Summer song is odd, but the two Lady Gaga songs are much appreciated. This might not be your mother’s dance game, but if you have cool young dude in the family, it will be a hit.

The game developers at Harmonix, who have already banked the enormous success of Rock Band, have proven once again that they can deliver a fun, energetic game experience. Solo play is fine, but the game is made for battle mode! A great addition is Break it Down mode, giving you the freedom to perfect a routine in any difficulty level before moving on to Perform It mode. A cool feature is freestyle, during gameplay, you’re asked to perform any move from the routine, which is then repeated in flashy video playback seamlessly with the song.

The on-screen dancers feel a little too designed and awkwardly rendered. Their movements are quirky and sometimes tricky to follow. In Singstar Dance for example, the dancers accurately reflect a real person, but these dancers are garish caricatures. The real winner though is the superior Xbox Kinect technology, which doesn’t require the annoying glow sticks of the Playstation Move, “you are the controller” as they say.