Britney's Dance Beat

"A good addition to the American-hated genre of dance/rhythm/music games."

Britney’s Dance Beat Review
GRAPHICS: 9.0
GAMEPLAY: 5.0
FUN FACTOR: 3.0
OVERALL: 7.0
CONS: If you don’t like Britney Spears, why would you play this game?
NEEDS: A highly polished sequel not published by THQ and more support from Britney Spears.

DDRKnight background history:

Yes, I am a teenager but I'm in the point of my life where I'm mature enough to understand games to serious levels and where the word 'cool' annoys me. I have very, very high respect for dance/rhythm/music games and I do like and admire Britney Spears and her music, hybrid-pop. I have played games such as Bust-A-Groove 2, Space Channel 5, Gitaroo Man, Mad Maestro, and domestic DDR or Dance Dance Revolution games for the Sony Playstation. If you have absolutely no respect for these types of games, then you will obviously not like Britney’s Dance Beat or any of the titles I’ve mention above. Oh yeah, if you think Britney’s Dance Beat sucks just because Britney Spears is on it, you're pathetic!

When Britney’s Dance Beat was announced this year, I was startled because THQ was involved and they had a bad reputation of releasing bad games. I knew THQ for making good wrestling games, but dance/rhythm/music games? Researching more about the game, I learned Metro was to develop the game. Recalling Bust-A-Groove 2, I was satisfied. I keep hearing that Bust-A-Groove was the best dance/rhythm/music game in the past but I can not find it anywhere anymore and am still searching for it desperately. I knew Metro was going to use a Bust-A-Groove formula and that would be pretty decent for Britney’s Dance Beat. The day came and I immediately bought the game. The reason was because the game was admirable with the price tag of $40 instead of the usual $50 and also of course, I want to support these types of games to succeed. Loading up the game, I saw the THQ logo, other logos, then the Metro logo came up, and I smiled. Then the intro started with some impressive videos of Britney Spears herself because most of the footage was new to me.

I went to Audition mode and my first impression was “Is this all!?” You can only pick six weird dancers, but it was too early to judge the game so I went on. It seems you can only play 5 songs of Britney. The first 5 Auditions are a short version of the five songs, then the final 5 auditions are the full versions of the same five songs. During this time I was thinking I was ripped off. “5 songs?! 6 dancers?! $40?!” I was mad of course, but what I didn’t know was that there was another option called Video Vault. I entered the vault after earning all the passes very easily and I was hypnotized. I didn’t know what happened, I think it was the videos that told me not to return the game to the store. The Behind The Scenes videos were great since it showed Britney being normal, having a PS2 stupidly attached to a wall, and having her bedroom shown for at least four seconds. Then I entered the Immersive Videos. At first I thought it was cheap because I couldn’t see Britney’s face, and she was just rehearsing for Oops I did it again. After watching all the videos, I was seriously satisfied. The videos get better and better the better the pass you have, and I had the best pass with me. I have never been to a real Britney Spears tour or any other musical tour, but after seeing Britney’s concerts, I was pleased. Though it would’ve been better if you could zoom in more with higher quality or they should’ve just added normal videos from her official DVD videos. Overall, it was the vault that constricted me from returning the game.

The graphics are impressive, compared to other PS2 games, seriously. The models dance very smoothly, the animation seems perfect, and I’m impressed. Of course, for a usual layback careless gamer, he/she wouldn’t care about these things. I personally liked the fact that they motion captured the real dance moves and put them in the game. I’m planning to be a pro dancer in the future and the accurate moves are a welcome addition for me to learn. With more time and fine tuning, the graphics would have been phenomenal and the animation would be outstanding. What I mean is that when the rendered polygon Britney appears in the game, sometimes she smiles, but her smile is also a little bit creepy because it looks like she’s about to do something weird. The animation on the other hand really do seem perfect but unfinished. For example, when you pick the male dancer Rob, his necklace swings around his neck realistically. I mean unfinished because when you watch Britney in Preview Mode, her hair animates correctly, but not realistically. The hair on the back of her head do not move at all, which is disturbing. The only strands of hair that moves are on the front and side of her face. Again, these features would not matter to the normal gamer, but they should’ve been improved.

Gameplay. Hmmm… more than an hour depending on your skill level with these types of dance/rhythm/music video games. The fastest possible time you can beat the game with one dancer is about 25-30 minutes which would leave you two passes left to unlock. This means you have to play the game with another dancer again to gain yet another pass which would take the same amount of time. Then you have to play the game a third time with another different dancer which will earn you the final pass. Add it all together and you get an hour and a half of playtime. After you earn the final pass, there is nothing more to do. Two-player? Not very exciting and challenging. As I said, the Video Vault was the one that saved this game from being returned to my Wal-Mart. If the video vault doesn’t make you realize just how much Britney Spears works her butt off just to entertain you, then go ahead and return the game and get your money back. Also, I know I’ve been ripped off with the price tag of $40, but because Britney Spears helped me when I was a kid, I thought it’s time I try to help her by buying her video game, even if it’s average.

Overall as a whole game, the game is solid. Think about it, the game only has five songs. What most people don’t realize or care is that the five songs are licensed and are some of Britney’s greatest hits. The first domestic DDR (Dance Dance Revolution) for the Sony Playstation had 27 songs, but they were mostly songs that Konami, the developers, owned rights to and weren’t really hits from a worldwide superstar like Britney Spears. Licensed songs cost more to put into video games as I understand from previous discussions with my fellow DDR friends. Also, this is the first game Metro has made in a long time. It’s just very irritating that I know a heck of a lot of idiots hate Britney Spears, and another reason can be because her video game 'sucks.' It seems to me as Metro themselves did not want Britney Spears to succeed in the video game market. Evidence? Metro didn’t even know how to match the music videos that play in the background with the music. What a shame.

In conclusion, if you want to support Britney Spears or just want to support these extremely underestimated kinds of video games here in America, please at least rent the game or go all the way and buy it. If you don’t like Britney Spears, then why the hell would you waste your time bashing this game? I’ve already visited gamers.com, searched for Britney’s Dance Beat reviews, and the majority of the morons on that site either swore about how bad the game is without even playing it, threatened to kill/rape/bring down Britney Spears, or just made inexcusable reviews that made my blood boil. Lastly, Britney Spears had no idea what she was going into. She just had a concept for a video game and since she’s extremely busy with her tours, she never really had any time to plan the game or play other dance/rhythm/video games to incorporate into her game. I currently e-mailed THQ, since the Metro site is in Japanese, to ask them if I could mail in my Britney’s Dance Beat 2 ideas and THQ said, “Unfortunately, we are unable to accept any unsolicited ideas from outside sources. We are glad you like the game, and thank you for your interest in THQ products. I say, “Screw you THQ for ruining Britney’s reputation and screw Metro for screwing up big time, and I don’t like THQ products. Britney’s Dance Beat is the first THQ game I’ve bought in a hell of a long time. So you see, it looks like a sequel is trashed, but I am not giving up. Have fun with the game!

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 07/19/02, Updated 07/19/02