Dance Factory: Dance to Any Music CD (2006)
Developer: Broadsword Interactive Ltd.
Platform: PlayStation 2
Induction Date: 08/30/2006
Who knew that the Days of Open Hand CD contains such a creepy monster deep inside of it.
Before the arrival of Microsoft's Kinect, dancing video games primarily involve quick stepping onto rough plastic mats while matching the placement of your feet based on the arrow orientation shown on your television screen. Konami did all the works to make this popular with their Dance Dance Revolution line-up - and oh, I have so many of those in my Game Library. If you like DDR and its copycats, Dance Factory is the ultimate version of the game because it allows you to dance to your own music CDs so you are no longer stuck with the music given to you on any of those other releases. The automatic routine creator works really well as it will move you properly to the beat of the music but as if that wasn't enough, you can also create the "dance steps" yourself! The game also includes a puzzle game that was meant to give you something to do while the game analyzes your music CD: You basically rotate ever-increasing cubes of different colors to avoid them from color-matching. It's actually quite boring and I rather do something else like a quick run to the bathroom while everything is being prepared. Dance Factory also has a "monster" feature where you can extract unique monsters from your music CDs - just like Monster Rancher! - or customize your own ugly creation. The monster will then uh, dance with you in the background! The only bad thing about this game is that the presentation is quite basic and it could have benefited from a more flashy, dynamic visual design like those found in the DDR series. The game does offer the opportunity for Eye Toy play which adds hand movements into the gameplay and this mode replaces the background with the video feed from the camera. Still, it is cool to have a DDR game that will continue to get better as your music collection expands though this didn't stop me from getting Dance Dance Revolution Supernova a month later.
LIBRARY STATUS: 4 out of 5
2 comments:
I remember me and my best friend used to trade in our CD's for money and skip school to go play ddr in the arcade.... good times.... I loved ddr when it came out, and I was uber excited when my mom bought me the mat and games for christmas. But I feel like after ddr extreme the songs just really really sucked. I really like the songs that the arcade had but I guess they were never released on any ddr game.
I was iffy on dance factory but after reading this I might give it a go.
I was too shy to play DDR in the arcades but I always admired the fancy arcade stepping pads compared to the cheaply-made mats for the home version...
Post a Comment