Review : Dance Dance Revolution UNIVERSE 3 for Xbox 360

Score: 97 I got canned heat in my heels!

This weekend I traded in some old games and gaming hardware to Game Crazy and I was going to save up for the big bonanza of Street Fighter IV equipment but I saw that they had a copy of Konami's Dance Dance Revolution UNIVERSE3 for Xbox 360 so I ended up taking it home. The Dance Dance Revolution series of games or DDR as all the cool kids at the mall call it just turned ten years old. For those of you that haven't heard it is a dancing game played on a mat or platform with four arrows. A series of arrows moves vertically up the screen and you tap your feet on the arrows as the arrows cross a bar at the top. This is done in time with the funky Japanese techno pop tunes and you end up doing this spastic tapping dance that does not look like real dancing but it is a lot of fun. DDR was like the Wii than way before the Wii was ever made. Being a student of human/computer user interface design I am a big fan of any game that gets me to wave my arms and jump around like an idiot.

DDR is one of the last successful arcade game series left in America. Rock Band and Guitar Hero have been enjoying the spot light a bit too much recently and I am waiting for Dance Dance Revolution to come back and be cool again. I've sort have missed playing DDR. You see the last place that I lived in had low ceilings on the 2nd floor and it was pretty cramped and crowded. My new place has nice hardwood floors and I have enough room to breathe and think at the same time. I have not played Dance Dance Revolution since I had the first DDR game on the PlayStation One.

My younger cousin Gavin is a champion DDR player. He played it for hours each day for years down in California. He is also half Japanese American so it almost in his genetic heritage to kick ass at DDR. He wears sport shorts, hydrates ahead of time and stretches out before he plays at the arcade and he usually has a crowd when he turns into a foot tapping humming bird on coffee on the dance floor. However as you can see from the video I am anything but fast or coordinated. He got the better end of the family genetic lottery when it comes to DDR. As a hard core DDR player he has invested countless hours so it is more like a muscle reflex in a zen state than a conscious decision. Behold just how bad I suck at DDR.

I suggest that you might want to wash your monitor screen with bleach after watching me play DDR in my pajamas. (Wow my camera really picked up the bass from the woofer.)

This is a home port of Konami's latest DDR arcade game and as well as having super trippy happy graphics there are some music videos from the original artists. The dancing anime characters looked great. The motion graphics for the songs are a real treat and remind me of Saul Bass at an all-night glow stick rave. There is a custom character tool and a dance city quest mode where you have to unlock clothes and other goodies by winning dance challenges and competitions. There is an online gameplay mode via Xbox Live but unfortunately I kept timing out and could not find anyone else to play with online. Le sigh. Konami is also selling more songs via the Xbox Live marketplace.

The DDR hardware pad has gotten a lot better over the years. The new pad didn't feel like I was going to slip and it pretty much stays in place. In addition to the happy hyper Japanese techno pop that DDR has become known for there is some American disco tracks like Jamiroquai and the Jackson Five. If you hate techno and dance music than you are probably off buying some generic first person shooter game instead or a virtual cow tipping game on the Wii. The game retails with the dance pad for $70 and that is a pretty good price considering you are getting a big dedicated hardware controller and there is a bunch of songs and dances included. Another good thing that I will say about DDR is that it was developed by Konami of Japan and NONE of the people that worked on Rock Revolutions were a part of this game. Konami's lineup of Bemani musical arcade games have been a staple of Japanese arcades for years now and only a handful of them has made it to the US with notable exception of DDR. Konami has been improving and expanding on DDR but they pretty much have kept it true to the vision of the first game.

DDR is one of these genre defying games. It can only play it for about 45 minutes before I want to go suck down a cold beverage and take a cold shower. It just plain makes you feel good. This is one of the few games that make you work up an adrenaline high from burning calories and moving your butt on the dance floor. This might be the era of Rock Band but I hope that DDR makes a comeback. It sure has never gone anywhere. DDR is one of those few games that makes the entire video game hobby look better. DDR is a perfect game for kids of all ages, adults and anyone that is not embarrassed to be seen dancing spastic pogo dances on a giant video game controller pad!