Cons: no online mode, weak American soundtrack, old PS2 hardware
The Bottom Line: If your a DDR fan, DDR:X will give you exactly what you've come to expect from DDR games. No major innovations - just more music tracks.
The GAMEPLAY of DDR:X goes basically unchanged from its predecessors. You get a screen with arrows that scroll towards their timing markers. When the arrow reaches the marker, you simply step on a corresponding arrow button on the dance mat (or press a controller button in correspondence). Once again, we have varying difficulty modes: beginner, basic, difficult, etc which ramp up the speed and the intensity of said arrows. In extremely difficult modes, arrows may fain from sight and reappear with the rhythm. You may also be forced to master 3 ~ 4 steps per second and perform that way for the duration of a song – which also includes jumps, hold arrows (on one side) and other variations.
During steps, you are rewarded for dancing perfectly by a combo streak. If you mistep, you lose your streak. In some competitions/challenges, stepping perfect or near perfect is a demand.
In DDR:X, the major step change is the new "shock arrows" which look like electrified versions of the regular arrows. If you step on a shock arrow, one of the negative effects includes losing your step streak so its generaly best to simply avoid stepping on them. It is very challenging to do so if you play on a high challenge mode. The shock arrows are basically a carryover from DDR: Universe's "acid arrows".
STORYMODE/ WORKOUT MODE
DDR: Super Nova 2 featured a “story mode” referred to as “hyper master mode”. In this mode of the game, you danced through each song – performing in dance battles - earning points – battling bosses and progressing through the game. I ended up having to buy my sister a memory card because this mode is long enough that saving becomes absolutely necessary. I liked hyper master mode because it managed to feel better designed than the story mode on Xbox360’s DDR:Universe. This time around hyper Master Mode is gone and a new mode takes its place: “Street Master Mode”. Why not just keep the game’s modes familiar and IMPROVE THEM – rather than changing mode names from game to game? Well … it turns out that Konami doesn’t really ever improve game modes in their DDR games. All they actually do is go to the game’s bare coding, take out the old songs, push in some new songs and change the textures or the game announcer. They sell a new DDR game every single year, rather than allowing downloadable content, so they end up simply repackaging old meat to sell rather than pushing the game to new heights. As much as I hated the Wii version, at least, adding the hand motion controls was a small step forward. In “Street Master Mode”, you star as one of fourteen characters who each have a problem that needs to be solved by “winning dance battles to make money”. The story mode is introduced by conversations and furthered along by 10 dance battles to the character’s inevitable ending. Its not necessarily bad, but, it really isn’t spectacular either. Your basically just going to end up dancing anyway. Xbox 360’s DDR: Universe has the exact same setup, but it lacks the conversations. If this is all they need as a hook, they could easily make a game out of “You’ve Been Served” or “Stomp The Yard”.
DDR: X also has a Workout Mode and the ability to connect to PS2’s “Eye Toy”. In workout mode, your steps are counted in calories burned and you can dance towards calorie goals or track your calories burned over a long period of time – which requires a memory card for save data. DDR games have yet to perfect their workout mode which easily has the potential to be far superior to Wii Fit. All this mode needs is to play through the songs randomly while changing between basic and beginner difficulty (or speeding up arrows/ slowing down arrows) to simulate a low – high impact aerobic workout. Unfortunately Komani has never actually made a good workout code for the game and you’d have to switch songs yourself. But the real problem is, the PS2 version has just 70 songs, and does not feature a Hard Drive to download new songs to – or the internet support for it. Xbox 360’s DDR games come with 70 songs unlockable songs and feature an 8 song downloadable pack for around $9. Unfortunately Konami never gave 360 owners a way to compile all the songs from all 3 of their games – we are stuck having to change game disks to access old songs and downloaded content for the individual disks. Eye Toy support is relatively weak. You can put your picture in over your avatar. There is no online mode, so you can’t use it to see other players over the internet. The people’s you’d likely be playing with are right next to you.
SOUNDTRACK LISTING
Standout songs that I recognized were: “U can’t touch This” and “Big Girls Don’t Cry”. Pet Shop Boy’s “Always on My Mind” includes a background video. THAT’S IT ! The rest of the songs are mixed Euro and JPop. Last Year’s SuperNova2 had a lot more “American” content from Britney Spears, Chris Brown, Justin Timberlake, Gwen Stefani and even Sean Paul. This time around – you’re dancing to a lot of anime music you might care less about. The Japanese Pop tracks aren’t bad, but, a lot of them sound similar despite being well mixed and varied. I always enjoy seeing “Alien Six” on DDR games. Their song from DDR: U “Summer Fantasy” got me interested in them and I befriended them on Myspace and downloaded some of their unreleased content. My point is that, if you do run into a group you like, it is likely these games will get you interested in searching for new artists. Couldn’t DDR games use this to their advantage by offering more downloadable content?
The Playstation 2 is, lets face it, old hardware. Graphics and visuals that were once “crisp and colorful” are now “jagged and unpolished” when compared to next generation graphics. OK – I recognize that the system is old, but, fortunately, the PS2 still manages to offer more than the Wii version of DDR: Ultimate Party 2” and manages to look better. I won’t fault the PS2 for “looking old” simply because: #1, the gamepacks are cheaper than the PS3/360 at a cool $30 for a new disk/ $60 for the disk w/ pad and #2 most young people who’d be playing this game, aren’t necessarily going to be turned off by graphics with poor aliasing - evident by the popularity of the Wii’s games. They just don’t realize what they are missing and are only interested in fun gameplay. Video clips in the background take the obvious hit from the aging PS2 hardware. The anime dancing characters look about as good as they would on a Final Fantasy PS2 game, but the live action content doesn’t look that great. Unfortunately, DDR: X manages to do something really bad, which is to omit Multiplayer over the internet. Instead, you are limited to multiplayer over Local Area Network. You can set up 2 PS2’s to allow up to 8 players to compete – which means you’ll need 8 Gamepads. While this is a great option for a “workout party” – since some schools use DDR for teen fitness – its disappointing you can’t take the game over the net to play between homes with those same 8 friends.
OVERALL
As always, Konami plays innovation down and merely updates the basics of DDR to produce yet another game pack to charge yet another $30 - $60 for. I’m not sure how Konami handles DDR in Japan itself, but its obvious, they aren’t giving North America the content we are starving for.
I’m playing multiple DDR games across gaming platforms and besides graphics quality, they all look alike. Story Mode and Workout mode needs to be where Konami innovates this game. After that, they need to concentrate on getting more bang for your buck from the song tracks. In fact, they should allow you to download track mixes to your MP3 player ( Now that’s a great idea !?!). I just want to see MORE for my money.
DDR: X isn’t a bad game but it does nothing new. I can already guess that this time next year, I’ll be reviewing DDR:X2. Hopefully it won’t have the same problems.
awesome soundtrack packed with 65 major hits and brand new songs Brand new LAN battle mode lets up to 8 player battle simultaneously Create your own w...More at Amazon
Awesome soundtrack packed with 65 major hits and brand new songs : LAN battle mode lets up to 8 players battle simultaneously : Create your own workou...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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