Rating: NNN
As developers looked at the Kinect’s capabilities and considered its potential, two areas emerged most clearly: sports and dancing. Many were ready to get in on the booty-shakin’ action, and no fewer than three dance titles were available at launch. With Harmonix at the helm and its gameplay featuring prominently in Kinect ad spots, Dance Central seems to be the gamer’s choice.
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The playlist offers a solid selection of music ranging from hip-hop and club anthems to energetic pop songs. There should be something here for most people’s taste. The Kinect, a new peripheral for the Xbox, enables motion capture: it can see where you are in the room, identify who you are and react in real time to your movements.
To play the game, you learn a series of dance moves for a song and then perform them as accurately as possible. You select a difficulty level, and then each track increases the challenge as you go. To help you learn the routine, an instructor teaches you one step at a time, then makes you practise till you get it right or the virtual teacher runs out of patience. Some moves are dead-simple, but others will have you pushing your limits to coordinate all four limbs.
Don’t be misled by the promos for this game showing three people dancing. Dance Central is for solo performances only. There are dance battle modes, but they merely involve taking turns. If dancing together is something you want, look at Dance Paradise or Dance Masters both have better two-player offerings.
The addition of motion capture to dance games has certainly reinvented the genre. Gone are the days, hopefully, of bulky dance mats and button-mashing with our feet. Dance Central brings real choreography into your living space, leaving you sweaty and exhilarated when you finally nail a routine.
This game makes the Kinect worth getting.