As its name implies, Dance Central is a music-rhythm game that focuses on dancing. Derp. Thanks to the Xbox 360's Kinect peripheral, Harmonix was able to take the concept of a dance game to much further heights than the popular Dance Dance Revolution, Pump It Up, and In The Groove series. The game requires no controller to play -- and it tracks your body movements with surprising accuracy. There's a little window that displays your silhouette, so you can use this as a makeshift mirror to ensure that you're moving your body properly and are completely visible by the Kinect.
The game features a "Break It Down" mode, which teaches you the dance moves step-by-step, allowing even those with two left feet to have a good time with this game. The song features over 30 popular songs with a wide array of genres, both in music (rap, dance pop, house, etc.) and dance styles (vogue, jerkin', dancehall). Dance Central also features a cast of interesting (and sometimes annoying) characters, each with unlockable alternate costumes, and a crap-ton of achievements to help increase your Xbox 360 GamerScore.They're certainly not easy to come by, though, particularly because this game is physically demanding -- I've been working on this game for three weeks, now, and I'm only at 80% completion. (N.B. ~ I did manage to obtain all achievements after little more than 2 months.)
As with most modern music-rhythm games, new songs and dances are made available thanks to DLC, and with how popular this game is, I'm sure there will be many more to come.
Back when I first got my Kinect, I played Konami's DanceMasters, first, because I was ecstatic that it contained ParaPara dances. That game has nothing on Dance Central. Navigating the menus are so simplistic and natural, the graphics are vivid, the music is catchy, and the song selection, although I didn't like it at first (because I was unfamiliar with most of the songs), provides a huge variety in dance routines. Harmonix did an excellent job of cutting out the simplistic moves from otherwise complicated dances, allowing you to gradually familiarize yourself with moves as you progress from easy, to medium, and finally, to hard difficulty.
Some moves in certain dances seem to be unusually picky about accuracy, and the timing is sometimes off with what the on-screen dancer is compared to what you should be doing. Thankfully, though, sections of the dancer's body will glow red if you're not hitting that body movement correctly... but it certainly doesn't really help you adjust your body to figure out how to fix it. Being able to do moves in slow-motion in "Break It Down" mode has made this game much more enjoyable for me, although it's still frustrating when I know I'm doing a move correctly but the Kinect disagrees.
If you have a 360, and are willing to fork out the cash for a Kinect, you MUST get this game. Not only is it great for beginners and challenging for those who happen to be gifted at dancing, but it's also a blast to play with friends, and it's an incredibly fun way to get a work out. I'm sure that Harmonix could have done a bit more with the game (Dance Central 2, anyone?), but in my opinion, it's already at near-perfection. Get this game. Do it. Thank me later when you're having so much fun.
- Audio: 5
- Gameplay: 5
- Originality: 4
- Story: 1
- Visuals: 4
- Overall: 4
- Difficulty: Adjustable (Very Hard if you're aiming for 100% completion)
- Completion Time: +40 Hours
+ Vibrant, club-themed graphics with well-designed 3D character models
+ Incredibly diverse songlist and dance routines
+ Amazing for playing at get-togethers and parties
- A "mission mode" would've been nice
- Co-op mode is non existent
As Ulala once notably said... "Staaaaaaaaaaay tuned!"
