"Feel the exuberence, draw a crowd, dance until you drop, and break a leg. It's your show."

You step into the arcade, your heart racing and your pocket buldging with a wadfull of large bills. The clink of your tokens coming out of the change machine enhances your arousal. Your lowers now clinking, you step up to the flashing machine. No one on. Good. Time to control this band of losers and their arcade. Plunking a few coins into the machine, you put your feet on the buttons and start you dance your brains out. Insane speed, unecessary movements and arm action are all part of your routine. You sing at the top of your lungs as the arcade begins to center around you. You go out, flourishing and milking the crowd for all its attention. At the end of your run, you turn and ask modestly, ''Anyone want to play?'' They shake their heads in awe, and you start all over, dominating the machine and the arcade.

Kill the morale of Britney Spears and other annoying ''All We Do Is Dance!'' bands with one song!

Even if you live in a cave, you must know that Dance Dance Revolution, or DDR, is Konami's r0xs0me dancing series, in which you must hit button commands with your feet when the command arrows reach the top of the screen. Once you do, you get an on-screen rating of Perfect, Great, Good, Miss, or Almost, depending on how accurately you hit it. You want Greats and Perfects, by the way. Good will break up your combos, as Miss and Almost will, ensuring you a lower score. It's that simple, but not that easy, as you have to hop around the arrows at insane speeds and accurately, with rythem as your main guide. (The more intensely you watch the arrows on-screen, the worse you will do. Trust me.)

The arrow patterns, which range from hitting Up a lot to Left and Right at the same time to Up and Down to Left and Right to Right and Up, are paired with psycadelic, nonsensical backrounds and the funkiest music on the planet. This makes for a heart-stopping workout that combines the adveradge nerd's favorite two pastimes, music and videogames, with the forbidden relm of ''physical activity.'' *Shudder.* Fear not, however, as all is well.

On each song, and you of course choose the songs yourself, you must choose between Basic, Trick, and Maniac difficulty. But not all songs will be easy on Basic! Each individual difficulty setting has a number of ''feet'' points, ranging from 1 to 10. The more feet there are, the tougher the song. Also, DDR 4th Mix features three modes of play: 1 player, 2 player, or Dual, where 1 player uses both dance mats. Very cool, but be warned that as the pads are a comfertable distance away from each other, Dual is not for the short.

Who needs semi-good graphics when you're THIS funky to begin with?

As I stated before, the game has some pretty cool graphics. But they aren't exactly X-Box or Gamecube quality. Everything has a grainy touch, but it's easily overlooked when you're obsessed with clearing those easy-to-see arrows. Grainy or not, however, the backrounds enhance the game's experience. They all consist of your character dancing around screen, with colorful changing backrounds, none of them staying for long. Sort of a slideshow on acid.

But, I always say that part of an arcade game's experience and graphics are the machine itself. And boy, does 4th Mix's own. Were talking steel platforms, two sets of blue and pink light up dance buttons, behind platform saftey rails, loudspeakers flashing in neon colors next to the screen, a good sized screen displaying the game itself, and the cabinet's surface flooded with colorful logos. Once your eye catches one of these beauties, you can plainy see why they gather such a crowd. We're talking cool here. And not just your everyday cool, oh no. This is ADVANCED cool.

Sound? What sound? All I hear is the really small, really loud band playing inside the machine. Oh, and the crowd's clapping, but that's a given.

DDR 4th Mix is loud. And not just ''TV up all the way loud.'' Nor ''Drowning out my sorrows with my boom box loud.'' This is more like ''Mosh pit loud.'' You can head the ''Doo doo doo doo baby baby baby!'' of the game's few second intro from halfway across the arcade.

There are no sound effects.

But, getting to the music, well, we have a bit to cover. There are two versions of DDR 4th Mix. The normal one, wich has several tons of songs, and DDR 4th Mix ''Plus,'' which has a seemingly endless stream of songs. But don't fret if your arcade's cabinet isn't a Plus; they're just as good. Both versions have an insanely wide variety of songs, the majority written for the DDR series. You'll find cool, strange and upbeat Japenese pop, rap, techno, trance, disco, and music only defineable only as cool. Plus, Konami took the liberty of adding some real-life favorites to DDR 4th Mix. You'll find El Ritmo Tropical, Shake Your Booty, Tubthumping, (That's the Way) I Like It, and a few others. Woah. Kicking!

Yes, your arcade may suck. But mine sure doesn't.

DDR machines make a lot of money, no doubt about it, and the more cynical arcade owners will milk this for all it's worth. Prices generally range from $1-2 a game, and 3-5 songs a game. Some machines will also allow 2 players to play on one credit. Mine rocks. It's a $1 a game, 4 songs a play, and 2 can play on one credit. Note that this machine STILL shows such a profit and is so popular, my arcade has a DDR Club. $10 to join, and you get 20 special DDR-Only Tokens. Every dollar you spend for the next 12 months on DDR Only Tokens, you get 6 to a dollar instead of 4. w00t!, eh? Hope you find this good a deal in your place.

To end this, I'll just say that the DDR series better go on into infinity, and if it doesn't it's all your fault. :p Dance Dance Revolution 4th Mix is tons of fun, and will keep you at the same machine all day for many a visit, enveloping you as you shunn your old arcade favorites. Just make sure you give others a turn.

...Or get good enough that they don't want one.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 06/30/02, Updated 06/30/02