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Over the past year, as motion-controlled gaming has gained a greater hold in living rooms and basements everywhere, developers have worked hard to find games that take advantage of using movement to control games. One of the most sensible applications has been the dance game.
While the big three game consoles have all approached motion control in a different way, each has a long list of dance games associated with it. These allow players to pixel polonaise – and a variety of other styles, from country to Broadway. They can even soft-shoe like Smurfs, proving that we've come a long way since arcade Dance Dance Revolution machines.
But could dance games be enjoyable to someone with only marginally more rhythm than a myocardial infarction? There was only one way to find out – I gathered my kids and jumped in with both left feet to try. The games that we looked at were Everybody Dance on the PlayStation 3, Just Dance 3 on the Xbox 360 and Just Dance Kids 2 on the Wii.
Overall, the games are quite similar in a number of ways. Each has about 40 songs. The interfaces are generally the same – there's a model that the player attempts to mirror and a follow-the-bouncing-ball preview of upcoming moves that's presented with stick figures. There's some sort of feedback to tell the player how well he's matching the dance moves. Lastly, all the games offer a way to ratchet up the difficulty. Now, on to the specifics.
Just Dance 3 – tested on Kinect for Xbox 360, also available on Nintendo Wii and PlayStation 3 with PlayStation Move controller. $40.
I've always felt like the Kinect was best suited for children's games that require little more than pointing. But in Just Dance 3, I was pretty impressed at the Kinect interaction; the controller really seems to shine with this type of game. In addition to the user interface, described above, the Kinect adds a thumbnail of what the Kinect camera is seeing you do. This gives real-time feedback that you can compare to the dance model you are supposed to be mimicking.
We found Just Dance 3 to be pretty forgiving. It awarded us a lot of "perfect" scores even though we felt we were anything but. In fact, we felt the game was so lenient that we stepped up the difficulty a bit and discovered that Just Dance could be very critical. Still, the game was a lot of fun and our small group picked it as our favorite.
Because the Kinect was evaluating both arms and legs, we moved a lot more than with the other consoles, which only used a single controller. As a result, we really worked up a sweat. We also enjoyed the alternate game modes, including a freestyle mode where you can create your own dance, shorter versions of songs and a gallery mode where you can save your best dances.
Next up: Sony's Everybody Dance.
Everybody Dance – tested on PlayStation 3 with PlayStation Move controller. $40.
Everybody Dance wins the award for best interface. When selecting a song, the player chooses from a long list of album art, which is visually pleasing and the character model that players mimic is a desaturated video of an actual person holding a Move controller. We liked this choice over the silhouette of dancers found in some other dance games.
We also liked the songs in Everybody Dance a little more than the other titles, but that's likely personal choice more than anything else. Another feature we appreciated was the choice of a long or short version when selecting a song. When you're old and slow, sometimes an entire song feels like a lifetime. The short version is an excellent option.
In actual gameplay, there were a couple of negatives to consider. Everybody Dance only supports one to two players onscreen at one time, unlike the Wii and Xbox games, which support a more party-friendly maximum of four.
Additionally, like the Wii, the Move only reads the movement of the hand holding the controller. In theory, this means you only have to move one arm to play the game while the rest of your body can remain as motionless as Venus de Milo. But, in practice, it's actually a little difficult to dance while only moving one arm. Still, dancing with a controller wasn't nearly the same sensation as the freedom of dancing with the Kinect.
What's more, the stick-figure previews of the dance moves were so nebulous that we had trouble interpreting them into actual movement when it was time to bust a move. However, this isn't a huge complaint – learning and practice are a big component of improving in rhythm games. We both giggled and were horrified at the snapshots that the PlayStation Eye camera would periodically take of us when we were in the most unflattering of poses. Still, it was great fun.
The game does boast some fun extra modes. The "dance creator" mode that allows you to record a dance via the camera and save it to challenge friends later. You can also create a workout for a fitness program, play in a party mode that can track up to 20 profiles to track scores and practice shaking your groove thing in Dance Class, which allows you to slow down and break out tough sections. Though we didn't test it, Everybody Dance is compatible with SingStar microphones, allowing you to turn singing into a virtual karaoke minigame.
Up next: Just Dance Kids 2, and our conclusions.
Just Dance Kids 2 – tested on Nintendo Wii, also available on Kinect for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 using PlayStation Move. $30.
Last up is Just Dance Kids 2, an offering for the boundless-energy set. It only seemed appropriate to play this on the Wii, so that's what we did. The songs are all kid-appropriate, including post-toddler favorites like "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" and tween-friendly hits like "Burnin' Up" by the Jonas Brothers. An unexpected fun time was had because the nursery songs could be played in English, Spanish, French or German.
It was fun until my daughter announced, "This game is for kids." Ahh, the boundless wisdom that nine long years of age brings.
Just Dance Kids 2 also supports four players on both the Wii and the PlayStation 3 (but only two players on Kinect). But as with the PlayStation Move, the Wii controller only tracks one hand's movement. This left us with a little bit of an empty feeling. The interface is bright and cheery in a way you associate with a lot of kid things and creates the right atmosphere. On the Wii, there's a special "balloon mode" where kids can compete against each other to earn points by shaking their Wiimotes to pop balloons.
Gameplay is similar to the elder versions of Just Dance, except that the on-screen dance models are all kids – generally a main dancer with two backups. This title seems to be below my kids these days, but I loved the song list, which is very geek-friendly with songs from Yo Gabba Gabba, TMBG and the Muppets. Unfortunately, a good number of these songs are covers performed by studio artists.
Conclusions
For us, the best console for these dance games was the Xbox 360 with Kinect, mostly because it felt the most natural and we liked dancing without having to hold a controller. At the same time, we thought the Kinect was the most forgiving – but probably least accurate in reading our movements.
We really liked the interface in Everybody Dance and recognized that Just Dance Kids 2 was a pretty great game for younger kids. Ultimately, we enjoyed playing on all systems, and the games were similar enough that there wasn't one thing that forced one to rise to the top.
But our big conclusion was this: As long as you're getting up off the couch once in a while to shake your booty, it's gotta be a good thing – because it sure is fun.
Disclosure: GeekDad was sent review copies of these games. Furthermore, you should be thankful that this was not a video review.
