Just Dance

Families plan celebrations for birthdays, Easter, anniversaries and weddings throughout the year and for each of those occasions, you need something to bring family and friends together for some good, honest fun. For those families with a Wii console, there are countless opportunities for family fun with games specifically designed for such times. Just Dance is one of the latest games suitable for a party with the basic concept of dancing to a beat and scoring more points than everyone else. Sounds perfect, so are there are reasons to pick this game over any other to kick start celebrations?

This really is a basic dancing game, which has pretty much been done before, so you should be familiar with the format. The “dance mat” for the Playstation all those years ago allowed enthusiastic dancers (mainly kids) to interact with games in a new way, and now the technical capabilities of the Wii has allowed the interaction between console and dancer to go one step further. By holding the Wii remote in your hand, your movements will be recorded and you will then be awarded a score based on those moves. Simple really.

This leads nicely on to controls, which have basically already been explained. You hold the Wii Remote in your right hand and dance away. There is an on screen instruction as to what way to hold the remote, as it is quite important in allowing the Wii to read your movements more precisely. When you have mastered the way to hold the remote, the controls are actually very responsive, far more than I would have thought which is great and means that there is no need to make a new peripheral to accompany Just Dance.

The game itself is simple to use and understand. There are a few different modes making gameplay slightly less repetitive. Quick Play simply allows you and up to three other people to dance to a song of your choice, without any scores being recorded. Challenge mode allows you to decide what rules to play by: Classic (get as many points as possible), Last One Standing (each player gets seven lives and the winner is the last one to lose all their lives) or Strike a Pose (stop and go as the red and green lights tell you). There is also a Warm Up mode that you should probably follow before entering into any game just to loosen up your muscles. This is a very good idea, but unfortunately has been executed rather poorly. It’s a very surreal image of a cartoon woman doing moves for you to copy, but the music is very oddly put together with it. It has to be heard to be believed I think. Altogether, the Warm Up section looks and sounds like something from the 80s and there is no interactivity so all you do is copy it. It just seems a bit…cheap.

So how exactly do you play? Well there are little figures that scroll along the bottom of the screen telling you what move to perform and when. Unfortunately, the images aren’t very clear so it’s easy to get lost and lose points. There is a larger main character in the centre of the screen and I found myself mirroring her moves which meant that I was slightly behind the play. If movements are repeated a few times then you can make up some points that way, but not enough if you are competing against people who maybe have better eyesight than me!

It has to be said that you do get a really good workout if you play this game for long enough, especially for your arms. The dances are energetic and the style is modern so probably more suited to a teen audience. You can also choose whether to perform through a whole song, or a shortened version of it. Maybe doing lots of short longs rather than a few long ones will keep the variation going, because if I’m honest the moves can get a bit repetitive and the whole game just gets a bit boring. I think there is a good selection of songs though with 32 songs to choose from including artists such as Cyndi Lauper, Katy Perry, Blur and MC Hammer, but I think it’s a shame that you don’t have to work through anything to unlock songs, as all songs are available from the first play. There are indications of difficulty level and required effort with each song awarded up to three stars for each, so you can work your way up in that way should you wish to have something to work to.

After each dance you are given a breakdown of how you did, which shows how many “Great” shapes you pulled, how many “Ok” ones and how many were marked with an “X”. When you watch your moves being marked throughout the dance it does seem fairly accurate, which is clever given that only the remote is being used. There are a few times where you have to move your left hand and you wonder “how on earth did it know what I did there?” so maybe it’s not completely flawless, but it’s not too bad.

As far as graphics go, they’re certainly not ground-breaking. I suppose it only needs a basic appearance to allow for easy access to the games and to be able to see everything that’s happening on-screen, but there’s really nothing to write home about. The colours are bright and eye-catching, but it does look a little bit like it’s stuck in the past.

When you compare Just Dance to other similar concepts that used the dance mat, you can see that the technology has taken a step up, but unfortunately there is no more fun to be had with it. It’s hard not to think that more could be done with this game including maybe an online mode, and its overall look could be improved. It’s definitely a game for a group of people as playing on your own doesn’t have the same fun factor, and doesn’t give enough of a fitness factor to justify playing alone. Dances can get repetitive, so if there’s no one around to laugh with you might feel like there’s not much to play for but a few points to collect. I think there are worse games to play at a party, but there are also better.

+ Good song list
+ Sensitivity of controls is well balanced
+ Up to four players can play making it a decent party game

- Not enough varying modes
- Not that pleasing to the eye
- Difficult to follow the instructive figures

Score – 5/10