DDRMAX: Dance Dance Revolution

"Not good for technical players"

DDR Max is Konami's first attempt at releasing a DDR game for the Playstation 2 in the United States. Though this game is one of my least favorite DDR games for the PS2, it is still pretty good and was a great improvement from the earlier Playstation DDR games.

DDR Max offers a good seventy songs that are playable on three different difficulty levels. There is Light, Standard, and Heavy mode. Prior to DDR Max 2, there were no beginner steps made for songs, which is why they are not included in this game. The most popular songs in this mix are probably Rhythm and Police, Holic, My Summer Love, and Max 300, just to name a few. This mix also included Oni mode, which is very challenging. In Oni mode, you must play a course of pre-selected songs and you can only get three non-combo steps per song until you fail the course. You cannot put any modifiers on these courses. This game was the first U.S. DDR release to feature speed modifiers; however, to the dismay of many players, this game did not include the Solo modifier. Unlocking songs is pretty simple in this game. You unlock new songs by playing more songs. After you play a certain number of songs, you will unlock the next. There are a few speed unlocks which will bypass this system and unlock the songs quicker.

There are many options to be changed in this game. You can turn event mode off, which will allow you to play songs continuously without having to reselect your difficulty after the final stage. This is very useful and makes game play more enjoyable and more fast paced.

The high score list on this game is well done. There is one page for five scores on the extra stage which can be unlocked if you AA you last song on heavy. There is another page for the one more extra stage scores, which you can unlock if you AA the extra stage, and a few pages for various Oni courses.

Graphics
Being that this is the first DDR game for the Playstation 2, the graphics were highly improved upon since the last DDR game. The arrows combo numbers, and text are much more vivid. The menu's, song roulette wheel, and difficulty selection screen are very well animated and in a cool blue color. The backgrounds are also very well done. They are much more in this game than just some weird looking person dancing in the background like previous DDR games. There were wonderful animations and even some life-like videos in the background. I am not aware of any of these backgrounds being repeated in any songs, so Konami did a nice job on the graphics.

Sounds
Musically, this game has the best soundtrack of any DDR game for the U.S. PS2. Many popular arcade hits such as Rhythm and Police were added. There was also the addition of the first song with a difficulty of level of 10, Max 300. The music is general is very memorable and has some of the best tunes. In this game, Konami decided to get rid of the old announcer who was a little less than memorable. Now there is a new, more exciting announcer who I like much better.

Game Play
To the average DDR player, this game would be one of the best in the game play department. The songs are very enjoyable to play and offer a good amount of challenge. However, for a more technical player like me, whose goal is to AAA songs this game is one of the worst! The timing window for perfects is way off sync. It is possible to change the position of the timing window, however, it never seems to be perfect. This really takes away from the game play if you are a more technical player.

Final Words
Unfortunately, DDR Max is past it's time with me. Before I became a more technical player, this game was the DDR mix that I played the most, however, now that my skills have improved, this game gets the least use. With the great songs and step charts, this game is one of the best DDR U.S. mixes to buy for a casual player, but for more technical players, there are better choices than this.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 02/03/06