Dance Dance Revolution (Import) (PlayStation)

Being good at games like Parappa, Beat Mania, or Bust A Groove doesn't necessarily mean you're good at rapping, deejaying, or dancing in real life. Thanks to Konami's Dance Dance Revolution, you can now get a little closer to catching that Saturday night fever on the PlayStation.

Dance Dance Revolution is an arcade phenomenon that hit Japan in 1998, quickly surpassing Konami's own Beat Mania as the game of choice for Japanese arcadegoers. It's just the latest in the Bemani series (Bemani is short for Beat Mania, the game that started the flood of Konami games). The premise for Dance Dance Revolution is very similar to the other games in the series: Tap the control pad in time with the onscreen commands when they reach the arrows at the top of the screen. Get them on the beat when they're inside the arrow guides and your dance gauge will go up. If you can't hang or you mess up, it will fall. If the gauge gets to zero, you'll fail. DDR supports the Dual Shock, which you can configure to vibrate when you miss a step, on the beat, or on the arrows. It's easy with the control pad, but that's only part of it. (More on that later.)

Music is a big part of Dance Dance Revolution, with a soundtrack made up of real dance tunes available in Japan on Toshiba-EMI's Dancemania compilations. Tracks include music by well-known artists like KC & The Sunshine Band, The Specials, and EPMD, but it also contains tunes by more obscure bands like Smile.dk. All in all there are 16 tracks - eleven regular and five secret. The game CD itself can actually double as a soundtrack - put it in any audio CD player, skip the first track (which is the data track; it could ruin your speakers if it is played too loud), and all the tunes in the game are now ready for your listening enjoyment. No matter what type of music you're into, if you like to dance, you'll find at least one song in this game that you dig. For me, Mantronik vs. EPMD's Strictly Business is just really fun to dance to. You can open up secret songs after playing through a couple hundred songs, so make sure you have the auto-save option on. Once you've played a few hundred times, additional songs begin to open up in the normal and hard modes - some of which are from the newly released 2nd Mix arcade game from Japan. While you play, an announcer tells you how you're doing by shouting things like "Great!" to "Not good" or "Come On!" After completing a stage, you are graded on your performance, the scores of which will be averaged at the end of the game.

In addition to the standard arcade and arrange modes, there is a training mode where you can practice your dancin' skills. Select songs you've tried in the regular game modes and slow down the tempo so you can practice them slowly before working up to songs with the breakneck pace. There's also an edit mode where you can create your own steps to a song and try them out - but you need a blank memory card to do that. In Japanese arcades, you can bring the memory card with your created steps and play them against someone else.

You can select from easy, normal, and hard difficulties, but the game also has nine secret modes, accessible via variations on Konami's classic Contra code (up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right) at the difficulty select screen. They include "another" mode (which has harder, alternate steps to each song), mirror mode (steps reversed), maniac mode (really hard steps), double mode, and combinations of the four. Double mode gives you the option to play a one-player game with two of the pads - you must jump between the two to perform the moves. All of these steps can be mastered, and after watching people in Japan play this game, I'm amazed that people can move that quickly.

Speaking of the pads, if you don't have them, the fun of playing the game takes a nosedive. It's still a lot of fun, and much like Bust A Groove, but with the pad, the game becomes a workout and a performance. Buy two pads if you want to get the most out of the game, but due to their high cost ($50-60 apiece), you may only want to get one. I prefer the bigger panels of the arcade machine, as it is sometimes hard to keep track of where you are on the pad. In the arcade, you can tell where you are because the panels are somewhat divided.

Graphically, Dance Dance Revolution is average. The point of the game is not the graphics, as sound and control play a much bigger role. Sometimes the graphics even distract you from paying attention to the arrows, especially when the screen flashes "DANGER!" when you're about to fail.

If you liked Parappa, Bust A Groove, Beat Mania, or any of the other music-based games out there, and you don't mind working up a sweat while playing a game, Dance Dance Revolution is a natural choice. You may be frustrated at first, as it takes a while to get coordinated on the pads - especially if you have no rhythm. If you're tall and clumsy like me, you'll find it even harder when you get started, but after a little practice you'll be busting out dance moves like a pro. It has a lot of replay value, as you'll want to master every song and the step variations within the hidden modes, and you'll want to unlock the secret songs. This is a game meant to be played in a group, with at least a few spectators - much like karaoke - it's all about group embarrassment. Obscure Japanese games like Dance Dance Revolution have little or no chance of coming out in the US, so import this one while you can.... And keep in mind you may have to wait a few weeks on an importer waiting list to get one of the pads.

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