Dance Dance Revolution Ultramix

"A nice, simple DDR mix."

Over the past few years, DDR has quietly swept the nation's arcades, offering an original experience, and creating a addictive fad. Enter the year 2003. DDR, makes it's way to Xbox in a big way. First and foremost, take this game for what it is, the first online DDR, and the ability to download new songs. It isn't DDRMax/Max2 or 5th mix, or 4th mix, or any other mix. It's Ultra Mix!

There's generally two catagories that DDR fits in, and that's sound and control. The song selections is small, even for a person new to DDR like myself, I would have loved to have more variety. However, the songs you get aren't that bad, there are some great ones like Castles in the Sky, and old favorites like Healing Vision.

This causes another problem though, hardcore DDR fans might find too many repeated songs and no quality new songs, so they will naturally scoff at the game. New people won't feel at home either, because a lot of the easier songs are the slow boring ones, and the faster ones are usually 5-7 footers. Now if you're new, then a 5 footer can be a daunting task. So I find that the game is either for the hardcore DDR fan that could care less about the repeats, and the intermediate DDR player.

The included dance pad, that's in the official Konami bundle is very nice. It's colors are questionable, but the plastic on the top is rigid, and grooved, and the bottom is similar to rubber, and is also grooved. This prevents slipping on both ends of the spectrum, you want slip and fall while playing because of a slippery top, and the pad won't move from under you. If I only have one gripe with the pad, it has to be that it's simple not big enough. the X,B,A,Y buttons are inactive during gameplay, so why have them.. those could have been used for extra space, or positioned, where if I pressed Y it would act like the up arrow. It just seems too easy to press one of the inactive buttons by mistake.

The backgrounds are what you would expect from a DDR game, which an EGM editor described as animated clip art. It would have been nice to include more full motion video, like those that can be found in DDRMAX2 PS2. Only one Ultramix track has video. The arrow options are nice, but are just a novelty.

In all, if you're a DDR Fan and you don't mind a few repeats or you're an intermediate player you'll find your game within Ultramix. New players though will have a tough time starting off, but can adapt fast, if you are willing to learn on harder tracks.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 12/07/03