DDRMAX2 Dance Dance Revolution

"Excellent DDR mix, especially for those new to DDR"

Introduction: First, I'm going to compare DDRMAX2 only to other USA DDR releases. There are many more releases (or ''mixes'') available if you have a Japanese playstation, but I'm not going to cover those.

If you haven't played one of the Dance Dance Revolution games, either on a console or at the arcade, they're rhythm games where you step on four arrows (up, left, down, right) on a pad in time with music. Arrows fly up the screen and you hit them when they reach specific spots at the top. If you've played Amplitude/Frequency or any other rhythm games, you've seen the basic concept, but without using your feet. You have a lifebar, and if you hit an arrow on the beat (or close to it), you gain life. Miss it entirely or hit it too early or late, and you lose life. Lose it all, and it's GAME OVER.

Gameplay Details:
DDRMAX2 has several different modes. The major one is Game Mode, which is the one most similar to the arcade experience. You can choose one of four difficulties (Beginner, Light, Standard, Heavy) or Non-Stop difficulty, which has pre-set series of songs. You choose to play either as one player on one dance pad, or as two players playing competitively (you can choose different difficulty levels) or as one player on both the 1P and 2P pads, running back and forth hitting all 8 arrows. The beginner mode is only available on a few DDR home versions -- others start at Light, and this makes DDRMAX2 the best suited to novices. Every song has a ''foot rating'' for each difficulty on a scale from one to ten, and previous mixes only had a handful of songs in the 1-2 foot range, but Beginner difficulty is all 1-2 foot songs. The non-stop courses in this mix are greatly improved from those in DDR Konamix -- they can vary in length, and there are custom, random, and ''players best'' courses available.

The other modes are: Workout mode, which is a modified version of Game Mode where it counts calories and has it's own non-stop courses or you can select any song. DDR is quite a workout, especially on the harder songs, and while the calorie-count may not be perfectly accurate, it's a good way to measure your progress. Endless mode (which must be unlocked) lets you play until you drop. Lesson Mode has a series of how-tos for the novice, although with the inclusion of Beginner difficulty, people can just jump in to the 1 foot songs. Training mode lets you work on beating any song with a number of ''aids'' -- clapping noises on the beat, slowing the song (and thus the hail of arrows) down, and telling you how many of your steps were early or late.

Control:
Some of the quality of the control will depend on the quality of the dance pad you have, but I'm not going to go into a lengthy digression on pads. Supposedly the pad bundled with DDRMAX2 at some stores is a fine one for new DDR-ers. I haven't noticed any major timing problems (some mixes were off-beat on some songs), but I'm also not a DDR expert. The user interface (when choosing a song, not when dancing) is fairly intuitive, although some choices (e.g. hit up twice to *decrease*, not increase difficulty on the song-choosing wheel) seem a little odd. You'll quickly get used to the interface.

Graphics/Sound: It's a game about music, so the music better be good! The quality is high, and the genres range around music you'd hear in a variety of types of dance clubs. (Trance, house, some r&b, assorted pop sub-genres.) Most of the songs have steps that really fit the music, so even songs I don't particularly care for are fun to play. The background graphics seem primarily designed to distract the player. A few songs have actual music videos, the rest have flashy screen-saver-like montages and the option (once unlocked) of having cel-shaded characters bounce around. The graphics, by themselves, aren't exceptional, but they are fun.

Replay/Length: DDR isn't the sort of game you ''beat''. (Um, that wasn't meant to be a pun, really.) There will be a point when you've unlocked everything, but the unlocks aren't really the point of playing -- you play in order to get good scores. The game also makes a great party game, especially since the two players can choose different difficulty levels, so an expert player and a novice can enjoy playing together.

Conclusion: If you've never ever played a single game of DDR, I suggest trying it at a friend's house or at the arcade to see if it intrigues you. If it does, I'd definitely recommend this be the first mix you buy. Once you're hooked, you can pick up the other mixes (which have different songs and slightly different features) and/or import the japanese ones.

Score: I'm giving DDRMAX2 a 9/10. (I'd have to reserve a 10/10 for an ''ultimate'' DDR mix that included several features from other USA or japanese mixes, but this is by far the best mix of the ones that actually exist in the US market.)

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 09/25/03