Our house party entertainment and exercise

When I played Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) on a friend's Dreamcast system, I knew I had to have it. DDR is fun, addicting, great for groups, and good excercise. Getting the whole package can be a little expensive. Besides having to own a game console such as Play Station, Play Station 2, or Dreamcast, you'll have to buy the game ~$40 plus the dance pads (you'll want 2) which cost around $40-$80 a piece depending on whether you bought the official higher quality Konami mats or a generic one, and then some way to anchor them to the floor so the don't slip around as you play on them.

What is DDR?

Finally, a non violent game that is tons of fun. DDR is a dancing game where the players literally have to dance for points. The game controllers are some 4' x 3' mats or pads which lay on the floor. (You can use the hand held controller but that's not fun, all the fun is in the dancing.) The pads have 4 arrows: up, down, left, and right. The game on screen is sort of a jukebox of music to select from. 1 to 2 players can choose from a good variety of songs, some of which are familiar to the American pop scene. The actual number of songs depends on which version of the game you have, but you can expect over 40 songs on a disk.

When the game starts, the song begins to play as the computer chooses dance "steps" to the song that the player must perform with the correct timing. Arrows will scroll up the screen at a constant rate and will reach the top bar of the screen on the beat that the player needs to perform that move. The end result is that players are "dancing" the routine for the song. You get points for hitting the right step on time and extra points for successions of correct steps. Do too many steps incorrectly, and you'll "fail" the song.

How's the music and the graphics?

The music is very catchy and usually falls into the category of pop or dance or techno. They are fun to listen to and because there are many songs to choose from, you usually won't get tired of a song. The visuals make the game feel like a music video with 3D animated characters dancing to music as well on ever changing backgrounds with a dynamically moving camera.

Is it fun?

It's tons of fun. Granted that players should have some sense of rhythm, DDR is widely accessable by all kinds. Our 20 something friends had lots of fun, as did highschoolers, and even our parents. The difficulty can increase pretty quickly and there is an enormous range of skill levels represented by the entire song list. In the end, there is a strong draw to "just try one more time" and you'll be playing all evening.

And it's good excercise too. There's no doubt that you WILL be sweating after just a few dances. The game is extremely active and I even use it as an alternative to an arobic session.

There are advanced modes too, where 1 player is required to do steps on BOTH mats, arrows disappear half way up the screen, steps can be randomized, etc.

One of the biggest complaints (which must and can be solved) is the tendancy for the pads to move around too much. With all that jumping, stepping, and stomping, the pads end up sliding and spinning all over the floor; especially if you are using them in carpet. Konami sells and enormously expensive (~$80 each) foam pad which the dance mat can be velcroed to help prevent the sliding. But I found a much cheaper solution that works better. My solution: by about 8-10 feet of the plastic hallway runner for carpet. This is that clear plastic "aisle runner" which has little plastic spikes which go into the carpet. Then buy several feet of velcro and use it to attach the pads to the runner, keeping the 2 pads just 6-10 inches a part. For furthe stability, put some kind of weight on the ends of the runner. Total cost for the "no slip system": $17; a lot cheaper than the Konami foams for $160 (2x $80).

DDR actually was one of the reasons we purchased a console system. We figured, if you have to spend $300 on some exercise machine (treadmill, bike, ellipsode, stepper, etc), then why not buy this instead? So we did.

I highly recommend trying out DDR in the store to see if you like the game. If you do, then I highly recommend purchasing the whole system. Wake up the "soul" in you, and dance!!