Last Christmas my mother decided to buy me Dance Dance Revolution Ultramix 2 for the Xbox. She knew that I went to the mall to go play it and sometimes complained I went out too much. I kind of found it to be a relief that she did buy this. Now I don't have to embarrass myself in front of the people who I hardly know or even know me, and I save loads of pocket change. Then I started getting sick of playing Ultramix 2 so I decide to buy the first Ultramix. I paid about $15.00 and thought that it was a decent price. Well enough of my life story, now lets get it on.

Sergio, How Do We Play A Game Such As DDR?

DDR is a music game that gets you involved with your feet. It's a very simple game, but sometimes people are easily intimidated by the DDR pros. For this game you use a dance pad that consists of 4 arrows ( UP / DOWN / LEFT / RIGHT ). When you select a song, music will start playing and arrows will show up on the screen. Your objective is to hit these arrows when they reach these little slots. A way that helps most people is by trying to go along with the beat. Now you may be thinking it's simple, but it gets much more complicated on the harder difficulties.

In this game your going to be jumping around, crossing your legs, and maybe doing things backward. There are many arrow combinations that appear on the screen. You may have 2 arrows that appear at the same which means you have to hit them with your two feet at the same time (usually called jumps). You also have arrows that appear one at a time and all you need to do is hit them one at a time. Now if you were playing a song and then it started to slow down and hold a certain note, a thing called a freeze arrow would show up. With these arrows you have to hit them on time and hold them until they disappear. These steps may be nothing by them selves, but when mixed together in a song that's fast paced and plenty of beats, you'll be in for one heck of a time.

This game also has a grading system that determines how well you play. You can get grades from A to E and if your really your good you can get AA's and AAA's ( A being the best, and E meaning you're pretty much a failure ). To determine these grades the game records how accurate you were. If you hit the arrow at the exact perfect time you get a perfect for that arrow. Now if you were to hit an arrow almost at the perfect time you would get a great. The there are times when you miss an arrow completely and you get Boo's. You can also try to keep a combo as your playing the song which will defiantly help boost your grade. It's pretty much the more accurate you are and the longer you keep your combos, the higher the grade you'll get.

In DDRUM you have three difficulties Light being the easiest, Standard is more or less normal, and Heavy for the really good folks. This doesn't mean that every song on that difficulty is of equal difficulty. Each song is unique in it's steps and beats. As a matter of fact some people are better at certain songs because of their beats and stuff. For example some songs are mostly jumps which I'm not too fond of, but a song that just has regular single arrows are much easier for me. This game may be harder to get into if a beginner since they didn't include the beginner difficulties, but you can also make your own steps if you prefer to have it that way.

Now the music in this game is pretty much what makes it or breaks it. For you people who don't have Xbox Live you can only play around 40 songs. Now if you of have Xbox Live you can download 5 packets with 5 songs each. The thing is you have to pay $5.00 for each one, but that's nothing to someone who plays often I guess. Now when I say music the first thing that pops on your mind would probably be Eminem, or Britney Spears, maybe even Weird Al. Guess what, unless you play the game in the arcades then all these songs will be new to you. Most of it is what I call "Happy Metal," or Soft-Core. Some have vocals and some are just purely beats that they call a song. These songs average form 1 to 2 minutes in length, because any more than that would tire you out quickly. I'm sure if you were to get this you would find a couple of favorites.

WOW, Look At Those Arrows Go

The graphics in this are pretty standard and not very impressive, I'd say. There's no polygons or anything like that, everything is clear. You have the arrows that appear during the song so you can hit them. In the background you have a video that plays just to add some color and make everything so bland. You can also have cel-shaded dancers floating around, but I found them annoying so I disabled them. Then again this game is about dancing not graphics and it doesn't bother me.

Ready Steady Listen

As far as sound goes in this game all you pretty much have is music. When you select a song it will make like a noise that lets you know that something was selected. Also when playing a song you have announcers saying things like "Good Job!" or "You Need To Practice More." The songs are plentiful and unless you've played them at the arcade they will be new. Some may know the song "Ready Steady Go" which made it's way into this game. Most people will find at least one song that they like, I mean you just have to.

Do You Think This Game Is Good For Me, Sergio?

Let me just start by saying that people who are lazy by nature would have a hard time getting used to the sweat and maybe feet pain. That's right you sweat if you play this game long enough. If you want to try something new then this may be exciting.

Random Information:

Only on Xbox
Player (s): 1-4
Online Multiplayer: Yes
Downloads: Yes
Developer: Konami Computer Entertainment Hawaii
Publisher: Konami
Custom Soundtracks: No
E for Everyone ( 6yrs )

Sergio's Numerical Rating: 8.2 / 10

Other Dancing Titles:

Dance Dance Revolution: Ultramix 2 (Xbox)
Dance Dance Revolution: Extreme (PS2)
Dance Dance Revolution: Extreme 2 (PS2)
Dance Dance Revolution: Supernova (PS2)

Recommended: Yes