Blog Archives
Summer surprise: Just Dance Summer Party coming next month
Just Dance Summer Party for Wii
Look what just popped up: Just Dance Summer Party is a “limited edition” JD game in the kazillion-selling Wii series, containing 23 tracks. But the bad news is, you may already own some or all of them; it’s a collection from their online store. According to their Facebook page, the song list is:
- A Band of Bees – “Chicken Payback”
- A R Rahman, The Pussycat Dolls Featuring Nicole Scherzinger – “Jai Ho! (You Are My
- Blur – “Song 2″
- Carl Douglas – “Kung Fu Fighting (Dave Ruffy / Mark Wallis Remix)”
- Countdown Dee’s Hit Explosion – “Barbie Girl”
- Estelle featuring Kanye West – “American Boy”
- Katy Perry – “Firework”
- Love Letter – “Why Oh Why”
- M/A/R/R/S – “Pump Up The Volume”
- Nick Phoenix and Thomas Bergersen – “Professeur Pumplestickle”
- Panic At The Disco – “Nine in the Afternoon”
- Rihanna – “Pon De Replay”
- Steppenwolf – “Born To Be Wild”
- Studio Allstars – “Maniac”
- Sweat Invaders – “Funkytown”
- Sweat Invaders – “Skin-To-Skin”
- The Hit Crew – “Here Comes The Hotstepper”
- The Lemon Cubes – “Mambo No. 5 (A Little Bit Of Monika)”
- The Lemon Cubes – “Moving On Up”
- The Reverend Horatio Duncan & Amos Sweets – “Down By The Riverside”
- The Supremes – “You Can’t Hurry Love”
- The World Cup Girls – “Futebol Crazy”
- V V Brown – “Crying Blood”
According to Amazon, Just Dance Summer Party is coming July 14.
Party in the USA: In The Groove for PS2
In The Groove was a dance-pad arcade game that was inspired by DDR, so much so that it sparked a lawsuit by Konami that pretty much shut it down. But before it disappeared, a PS2 version was made, and you can pick it up very cheap, new or used, at Amazon or Gamestop.
ITG was developed in the US to be sort of the American answer to DDR. Gameplay is essentially the same: step on a four-arrow mat in time with a row of scrolling arrows. (Maybe if they’d rearranged the arrows like Dance Factory, they could’ve escaped Konami’s wrath.) But instead of chirpy j-pop singers and anime-looking dancers, ITG has more instrumentals, more club-ish music and more streamlined graphics and sound effects for an overall more “Westernized” feel. New features are also added: you can alter the arrows to make them wavy, dancy or twisty, add “mines” (round symbols that deduct points if you step on them) and “hands” (extra arrows forcing you to bend and hit the mat with your hand).
ITG with one of the many arrow variations
ITG also has a workout mode, and they were a couple years ahead of DDR in adding a doubles option to workout mode. Like on DDR’s PS2 workout modes, you enter your weight and a goal (either time played or calories burned) and select individual songs, preprogrammed courses or Random Endless – play songs continuously for the time you selected. I like to do Random Endless, because it shuffles all the songs on one difficulty you select. 20-30 minutes of songs on a difficulty level of 5 or 6, on a scale of 1-12, makes for a great steady-state cardio workout.
In The Groove fitness mode screen, courtesy of Gamefaqs
(It should also be noted that unlike DDR, ITG’s calorie counter is really screwed up, almost as badly as We Cheer’s. I just ignore the calorie counter and select a time goal only.)
If you enjoy playing DDR on Endless mode for cardio, In The Groove is worth searching the bargain bins for.
We Cheer 3? No, but close enough.
It’s starting to look as if Namco has abandoned one of my favorite Wii dance-gaming series, We Cheer; after We Cheer 2 came out in the fall of 2009, there hasn’t been a peep (despite rave reviews at Amazon) and both games now are labeled “discontinued”. But late last year, Kidz Bop Dance Party, a game that also has you tracing imaginary lines to the beat of dancy music, was released, and I just picked up a copy last week since Amazon had it for around $12.
Confession time: I can’t stop playing it!
Kidz Bop Dance Party is of course part of the heavily-advertised Kidz Bop franchise of popular hits rerecorded in kid-friendly versions, but the game is just a rebranding of a Japanese dance game, Happy Dance Collection. They took out the Japanese pop idols and put in tweenish-looking kids, plus 24 songs, which is less than many dance games. (I think I’m going to start a personal “Dance Game Rule” of not spending more than a dollar per song.) Songs include shortened versions of Thriller, 1985, Party in the USA, Don’t Stop The Music, and – ugh – Girlfriend, plus fun originals like Kidz Bop Shuffle.
Gameplay is the same as We Cheer: pick a tune and dance along with the avatar while moving your remote along the tracks of arrows. This game only uses one remote, and the dancing isn’t as complex as We Cheer’s, but I still work up a sweat. This is also a better party game than We Cheer because it offers a guest mode, so guests can jump right in without having to create a file.
In Free Play mode, all the songs are unlocked from the beginning, and you can play them on easy or normal mode. In Challenge mode, you progress along a trail of stars and win badges on your way to Superstar status by passing groups of songs and then a “test” song. It looks as if you eventually unlock harder modes and Mii support, although I haven’t gotten there yet.
There’s a versus mode for 2 players, and they made it more kid-friendly by not showing who is winning until the song is over, to prevent discouraging the very young. With all the modes, you win points that you can spend in the shop on clothing, shoes, hairdos and accessories. There are boy and girl avatars with adjustable hair and skin colors.
No workout mode or online/downloadable content, but for $20 or less, Kidz Bop Dance Party is a great deal, as fun and active as Zumba, We Cheer, Michael Jackson or Just Dance.
How to use DDR to work on your balance
Dance Dance Revolution Extreme 2 for Playstation 2
A while back, I wrote a post about how you can get a fun and unique core workout using DDR. This time, we’re going to use the game as a fun little balancing exercise that you can do whenever you have a spare ten minutes, or just need to take an all-important break from sitting.
I got this idea while watching a “knee training” workout by Mark Verstegen, on the sportskool on-demand cable channel. I’m a big fan of Verstegen’s Core Performance book series, in which the theme is that your body moves as one integrated unit. Thus, if you’re having knee problems, it could be that your hips or other joints and muscles aren’t doing their jobs, and need to be retrained to take the load off your knees. The many hours of sitting that people do nowadays is causing not just obesity, but also tight hips and “lazy” glutes.
One exercise in Mark’s workout consisted of hopping back and forth over a line, without letting the other leg touch the ground, and another exercise consisted of hopping from one leg to the other, pausing for a second each time to get one’s balance. I thought, “that looks like a job for DDR!” So I tried it out on the Wii game DDR Hottest Party 3, after shutting off the jumps in the options menu. (This is on the main menu under Options and Individual Options. You might also want to turn on Cut to get rid of faster steps.)
I played Lessons 1, 2 and 3 – all beginner level songs, but just by making a “rule” that only one foot could touch the floor at any time, they became quite a challenge! Beginner songs are actually a little harder than “basic” songs when played this way, because they have fewer steps, causing you to have to balance on one leg longer.
This is a fun way to enjoy beginner-level songs (I like those “Lesson” songs) and if you have the PS2 or Xbox DDR games, you can use Edit Mode to craft a balancing workout for other songs as well.
