Dance Dance Revolution 3rd Mix

"Wakeup! Buy it and dance your feet away!"

Alrite this game is ultimately the best release konami has done in a VERY long time. Surpassing its other titles such as guitar freaks, bishi bashi, drum mania and beat mania DDR is definetly the best (and the one where you get the most exercise!!!)

Well lets see if you really like playing video games, listening to all sorts of musical tastes and getting some calories burnt this game is ideal for you! Since this is a the third instalment of the DDR series (minus all the club remix discs etc.) It out does all the rest. Im sure most of you would have played this game, or its one many various versions in the arcade center down the road from you (go update city and orbit!) and got addicted to it. Well now you can get it for yourself on your very own playstation. Of course the ideal way to play this game is to play with a dance pad. The one I got is pretty good except for the fact that it slips around alot (I lost the rubber stick-ons) You can even go one step further and play on a dance mat with built in lights! Woohoo!

Let me just start off by saying I'm really bad at this game. No matter how much I practice and practice I still can't pass the 'marvellous' grade of stages. Basically the game requires you to step in a directional button (left, right, up and down) When the arrow reaches the top of the screen. Usually the songs go in beat with the arrows but if you're trying to play this game on a pal version you'll need a cheat code machine to get it sychronising. Basically you choose a song and depending on your skill and how accurate you hit each button you'll score one of the five basic comments: miss, poor, good, great and perfect.
Getting consecutive 'greats' and 'perfects' will give you a combo score. Now there are several additions to this game. After unlocking most codes you can press select to access a new version called step step revolution and dance dance revolution 3rd mix remixed. SSR is basically where every and any song you pic is of a high grade i.e. very hard to do. DDR3rdmixremixed gives you additional songs from the first and 2nd remixes.

It depends on your taste of music whether you like a song or not. Some really catchy tunes are:
1. Hey Mr Wonderful
2. Butterfly upswing
3. Boom boom boom
Mr Wonderful on trick mode is my fave at the moment.

Oh theres also two extra bonus tracks to unlock:
1. Gimme gimme
2. Bumble bee
Bumble bee is a catchy tune buts its a really easy stage to do.

Theres pocketstation compatability on this. I've got a pocketstation so I uploaded the 3rd mix stuff onto there but Its all in japanese in which I can't read. Friends tell me it has something to do with a mailing system is which each person with a pocketstation can tranfer text or unlocked stages through the infra red thingy. Well actually I can read japanese but i can't understand it unless its in katana. Other than this you can actually save your records and stuff onto a memory card and transfer it over to the arcade version to upload. I haven't been game enough to do this just incase I blow up their machine or something. Besides I'm not that hardcore. Basically its a really great game to play especially with a group of people (even helps if you're all drunk and laughing hysterically hahha!)
One really great feature is the diet mode. All you do is enter your weight and then the amout of calories you want to lose and ya keep picking and playing songs till you fufill the calorie amount. Well for somereason i don't know how to convert it to dance mat calorie burning. I think it only records the amount of calories you would lose if you played it on a basic controller. I can see this because after I finish a really hard song I only get 4 calories burnt (I don't think so!). Anyway this is a really great mode and especially good excuse to say you've done your exercise.

Well lets see the scoring:

1. Gameplay - 8/10 If you like this sorta play mode. Great exercise and gets you boppin to the music! Watch out for those double and triple beat steps where I almost fall over.

2. Story - N/A Well there isn't really one. Unless you interpret the characters as a story telling in progress. You even get cows and aliens to choose as dance characters!

3. Audio - 10/10 Some of the best music you can find on the playstation. I would really like to get the audio cd sumtime (if anyone knows how email me k?)

4. Replayability - 9/10 This is a game that would last yah really long. Mine 2nd mix lasted me until I got 3rd mix. And I expect this one to last me till 4th mix!

Buy or rent? - well it depends. If you're curious rent then buy. But if you're already a fan of the DDR series than go ahead. Its the all time best in the series upto date and I'm sure there is more to come.

Alternatives? - Well there are always the previous instalments like DDR, DDR 2nd mix, DDR club mix...the list goes on. Umm nothing really exist that is as good as this. What a real challenge is probably trying to play bust a groove 2 on the mat! Yeah that'll really get ya going. Or you can try the other konami stuff that follows the same activity revolving around music: Beatmania, Drum mania, guitar freaks and bishi bashi. Drum mania is only on PS2 whereas all the rest are on the playstation format. I quite liked Beatmania but I never got the proper controller to play it with. Bishi bashi will wear out the rubber sensors on your controller and guitar freaks bored me. You need the actual guitar to play that one.

Overall DDR 3rd mix is a great game. I liked it mainly because it was something different and addictive! Can't wait till 4th & 5th mix!!

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 07/08/00, Updated 07/08/00