Dance Dance Revolution Extreme

Dance Dance Revolution Extreme. This is the classic title that helped push the DDR brand across the world and is the absolute definitive when it comes to the Dance game experience. If you love yourself some classic club music, a unique challenge, and are interested in increasing your physical fitness a little along the way, then this is without a doubt the game for you. Get your Dance pad out of storage and let’s boot up and jump in.

Gameplay

The main objective of DDRE is to place one’s foot upon the arrow input on the Dance pad that corresponds to what is shown om the screen. This is done to accrue points over the course of a song to reach a high score. The method is similar to Guitar Hero or Beat Saber but there is more room for error. In Guitar Hero, you either hit the note or you don’t. In DDRE you have a range of score surrounding the input based on your accuracy; increasing from Poor to Perfect.

Your objective in all this Dance fuelled madness is to make it to the end of the song without missing too many beats and getting a game over. There is also different difficulties and speed multipliers that make the sessions more challenging.

Game Modes

There are a whole bunch of game modes available for players to peruse. Some of them vary quite a lot and they challenge you in different ways. They can be tests of endurance where there is no time limit and others that require you to use your arms as well to hit the pads or even move in game obstructions. That’s just the surface of the game, there is a considerable number of game modes that provide an incredible amount of replay value.

Some of the game modes available include:

• Party Mode: Contains a number of mini games for players.
• Hyper Dash: the dance pad functions as a race pad and the game has players running down a street while avoiding obstacles.
• Magical Ball: Without using the gamepad, players must knock a ball into blocks to clear the board. This mini game functions like Arkanoid.
• ...and many, many more. There’s even a straight up workout mode that helps you with cardiovascular exercise. Thanks to its extremely simple concept, this game is perfect for people of all ages.

Music

There is a huge selection of tunes for players to use in their dance adventure. With a total of 71 songs, players are able to dance to their hearts content and pick up a new playlist of tunes to keep their hearts beating and feet moving.

Pros:

• Iconic but simple gameplay
• Great music
• Lots of mini games available
• Excellent replay value

Cons:

• Some mini games require additional gear

Dance Dance Revolution Extreme takes the foot-stomping dance of its predecessors and adds hand movement to the mix, creating an interesting new game that somehow fails to fully utilize the upper half of the body. The dance elements of this latest DDR are sure to please, with over 65 songs and more than 100 minutes of dance music and moves. The songs are fun to dance to and the challenge can really be pumped up by increasing the difficulty settings. But if you were expecting a complete overhaul of the game's engine, forcing players to use their entire body to dance to the rhythm, you're going to be disappointed.

The game still includes the basics, including a mission, endless, training and lesson modes which let you take on songs one at a time or in sets. The new feature is the party mode where you can play a collection of mini games with or without an EyeToy. The two non-EyeToy mini games are pretty pedestrian, pun intended. In Hyper Dash you have to out run your opponent, a good exercise game if you are using the foot pad, and in the other you have to feed digital creatures by mashing or stepping on the correct food button for a given animal.

The EyeToy games are where the real innovation in this latest DDR is. There are five mini-games included, most of which are exceptionally fun and almost worth the price of admission. Clean the Screen is a dance mode where you have to continually wipe the screen clean in order to be able to see the dance steps. Coconut Panic is a game that has you shaking trees with your feet and then swatting at falling coconuts with your hands. Magic Ball is probably one of the best in the lot. It's basically a complex game of break-out where you use your hands to guide a steel ball into breakable bricks. It's quite fun and could have easily been a great addition to EyeToy Play.

The two biggest disappointments in the mini-games and actually the whole game are Watch Me Dance and Hands and Feet. Watch me Dance simply lets you see yourself dancing on tv while you play the game, the problem is you typically are concentrating too hard on steps to watch the image and for some unfathomable reason Konami decided to not make it possible to play back the performance. That would have been a great feature and could have helped push the game from Fans Only to Recommended Buy. The other thing that would have made this game a definite keeper is if Konami had done more with the Hands and Feet game. This is the mode most probably expected when they bought the game. In it you have to follow the regular dance steps plus wave your hands over fixed spots, one in the top right and one in the top left, to the beat. While this is fun, it would have been much more fun if there were more fixed spots, perhaps a circle of them or moving spots for your hands ' something that forced you to really use your hands as much as you use your feet.

I guess what I was expecting was DDR meets EyeToy Groove, a fantastic dance game in its own right. But what I got was DDR with the EyeToy thrown in as an afterthought. It's still worth a try if you're a DDR fan or have an EyeToy and want to try something a little different, but Dance Dance Revolution Extreme just doesn't live up to its name.

Oprah doing the macarena? Swing craze? Riverdance? Nope, it took a videogame to turn a legion of career wallflowers into hip-shakin', dancin' idiots--er, experts. The DDR phenomenon may have started in arcades, but its combination of no-look dance routines and profuse sweating has since migrated to your living room, and even into some school PE classes. It's the new Jazzercise.

Ultimate moment: Seeing a West Side Story-style DDR "gang," complete with matching satin jackets, file into the arcade and commence to steppin'. (Hit ddrfreak.com for your DDR voyeurism needs.) Those about to dance, we salute you.