Lets get down to business. The music and songs are from all arrays of different music geners, raging from hip-hop and R&B to pop and reggae. Some of the songs will even have the moves that you see in their very own music videos, Crank That by Soulja Boy for one.
You are able to chose different difficulties for each song, easy, medium and hard. Each difficulty has the same structure for the routine, but as you increase the difficulty you get more challenging moves and you will have to move a lot faster between moves. The navigation for the menue screen is very nice, you hold out your right arm and move it up and down or bring it across your body, your left arm acts as a back button almost, its very simple to understand and flows very nicely.
Now there have been a few complaints with certain aspects of this game, game modes particularly. Yes there is no career mode, why? They could have had a mode where you create your dancer, start out on the streets dancing for money or something and as you build up a reputation you meet new characters and new dances, bigger venues etc. But allas this is not the case, there is no mode other than a kind of 'play now' if you will. Some people aren't very happy with the characters either, saying the look cartoony but I personally disagree, I think the characters move very well to the routines and you really feel like you want to look like them when you see them acing every single move! Also there isn't much to unlock, besides another costume for the dancers and medium and hard difficulty for each song after you complete easy, that is about it.
Now there are a few different things you can do with this game, there is the obvious 'Perform it' mode, but there are also a few extra things you can do. A work out mode which basically kicks your butt, it shows you how many calories you are burning with each move and how much you burn all in all. It truly is a great workout actually, you have to work incredibly hard and it feels very rewarding. I have one issue with this game mode though, the idea is great but why can't you have a que of songs that merge into one another. You work your butt off during the song you chose and when its over you feel great, but obviously the songs are only a few minutes long each, then you have to stop and chose another song, go through the crap which takes a few minutes sometimes. It's slightly annoying but the workout mode is still very good.
Break It Down mode, possibly the most genius part of this game. If you haven't already heard, Break It Down allows you to practice the routines of any song you chose at any difficulty. You are taught bit by bit how to perform the moves of the routine, then after you have got the moves down you start to put them together. You can even slow the moves down if you really can't tackle it, a friendly choreographer is there to help you with what steps to take and it really does help. After your training you are able to perform the song for real and see how you do, if you still miss a part then you go back and practice. The idea is to really teach you how to dance and it works impeccably.
There is a dance off mode which is a lot of fun when you have a few friends over. One person starts the routine and starts to build points and he hits his moves then when you would usually have a free style mode you are told to switch players and the other player jumps in. The person with the highest score wins! There is also a little feature that you can use when performing, up to two people can jump in behind the main dancer as backing dancers!
Finally perform it mode. This is exactly what you think its going to be, you perform the routines of the songs that you have chosen, the moves come up on the right hand side of the screen, when they appear in the box you begin that specific move. Each move is split into two beats, so you perform the move twice if you aren't too sure what that means. The game is so accurate, it seems even if you have a finger out of place you will not hit that perfection move. You can tell when you are doing something wrong because that part of the body turns red on the dancer on the screen. There is also a small box with your white figure so you can see how you are moving. Finally a free style section which is very fun, basically do what you want and try and look cool!
There is a lot of stipulation that there are no real rewards in Dance Central, you get star ratings for the dances you perform ranging from one to five and there is even a five gold star reward you can unlock if you hit almost every move of the routine. However I disagree with all of this, because yes you might not get a great reward because there is no campaign but you are learning how to dance, how to properly dance. This is something that is very difficult to master and you are being taught by professionals. You constantly progress and with the break it down mode you really feel that you are learning to dance!
One of the biggest problem with Dance games these days is they are just viewed poorly, we have come a long way from the common dance mat. I have had family and friends over and the second I say 'Lets play Dance Central' I get the same reaction every time, 'there is no way I am dancing' or 'that's just embarrassing'. But after a bit of arguing they all get infront of Kinect and start moving and once you do, you are hooked. You realize that even if you are making a fool of yourself, you are progressing even the slightest bit! You feel that serge of fun which everyone looks for from playing games!
Thats why all in all, I rate Dance Central a 7/10! It teaches you how to dance, teaches you great moves, it is so much fun and if you want to let a few little things get in the way of enjoying yourself like menue screens then you probably shouldn't be looking at buying Kinect.
If you are still wondering, 'Is Kinect worth buying?' Then here is your answer, YES! Even right now simply for this game, it has truly revolutionized gaming, thank you Dance Central.
If you are still wondering, 'Is Kinect worth buying?' Then here is your answer, YES! Even right now simply for this game, it has truly revolutionized gaming, thank you Dance Central.
