BREAKING NEWS. Konami just sent a press release for a brand ... new ... Dance Dance Revolution game. Again. Dance Dance Revolution Universe 2 for Xbox 360 will be "the best-looking DDR game to date." In addition to the now-standard Xbox Live support and Quest Mode, the biggest addition to Universe 2 is Freestyle Mode. This new mode has all the dance-dancing of DDR, with none of the arrows, allowing players to mindlessly stomp on their pads. Konami says it's "perfect for kids or anyone with two left feet." In short, it's made for people that should have never played DDR in the first place.
For those afraid that the 360 version will not provide enough challenge, the upcoming PS2 Supernova 2 will include the awesomely titled "Hyper Master Mode." Konami's E3 showing contains three DDR games: DDR Universe 2 on Xbox 360, Supernova 2 for PS2 and Hottest Party for Wii. We're hoping that the rest of Konami's E3 line up will have, y'know, some other real games too.
A shot of the loser getting his punishment in Dance Dance Immolation, where one wrong step could leave you with a face full of flames (thanks to dharmabum90 for the snapshot). Check out the highlights for today:
There's an alarming epidemic facing high school graduates in this country. No, we're not talking about literacy or obesity or anything so unimportant. We're talking about video games. Get your priorities straight, people!
According to a shocking report in the Dayton Daily News, the graduating class of 2007 is being distracted from important game-playing time by attention-stealing activities like "homework, jobs and extracurricular activities." That's right ... the promise of our future would rather do their homework than put in the important gaming time that will help them grow into mature and active adult gamers.
What's worse, some of today's graduating seniors have a hard time envisioning a future that included normative social gaming. "If some guy was like 'You want to go on a date? We could play Guitar Hero,' and I'm 30, I'd be, like, 'No!,' " said one such lost youth. It's enough to make you long for the good old days when students knew how important a Pac-Man high score was to their future.
The place may be overrun with deadly monstrosities and the overwhelming powers of darkness, but the tunes that echo throughout the hallways of Dracula's castle usually make the vampire killing ordeal worth it. Sensing that others might share the dark lord's fine taste in orchestral compositions, Konami has announced an agreement with Sony BMG Music to distribute its library of tunes through mobile service providers and online music retailers, including iTunes and Rhapsody. The deal encompasses soundtracks beyond those belonging to the obvious Dance Dance Revolution franchise, even catering to those that find the clanging pipes and grating gears of Silent Hill preferable to the latest Ashlee Simpson squealfest.
Konami also promises to make its vast history of music available for purchase on its official website, though specific release dates have yet to be announced.
Here's an intriguing approach to edutainment and exergaming, found at the Birch Aquarium at Scripps (photo snapped last year by Flickr user mathowie). The dance pad's arrows are replaced with DNA nucleotides (shortened to A, T, G and C). The player creates one of 20 amino acids by tapping out the appropriate sequence shown on screen. If you successfully hit all of the nucleotides it would shout out the name of it (e.g. "Cysteine!"). Totally cool for the nerds in us all. Check out the highlights for today:
With Rayman's musical mini-games and the multi-peripheral DDR franchise already making passes at the Wii, it would seem that Nintendo's system gets along famously with the rhythm genre. The two are like a pair of dazed lovers skipping blissfully through a park, unaware that their uncontrolled flailing and unexpected gyration is leaving everyone in the nearby vicinity with bloody noses and swollen eyeballs. That certainly sounds like the ideal Wii experience, at least according to EA -- they've just announced Boogie, a Wii-exclusive rhythm game that wants you to dance, pose and sing your way to living room stardom.
On the heels of XBLA's Boom Boom Rocketand EA's announced intention to bust into music games "sooner than you think" comes a game which, at first glance, appears to be the result of Tim Burton drunkenly colliding with a Singstar demo kiosk. Boogie will see gamers producing the moves and vocals for a music video, presumably making use of that super secret Wii microphone. The nunchuck is also incorporated here, giving rise to the possibility that the microphone peripheral itself may also harbor motion-sensing abilities akin to that of the Wiimote. What's the use of a microphone if you can't twirl it about like a buffoon?
Want the arcade DDR experience at home. You can go the wimpy route and buy a decent metal pad for a couple of hundred dollars. Or you can geek it up and build your own custom DDR pad for a little over 400 smackers and over 16 hours of heavy duty construction time.
We covered the original version of this pad back in June, but the updated version 2.0 comes complete with a sturdier frame of one inch thick steel beams, adjustable spring-loaded sensitivity and an even cooler LED lighting system than before. Hey Jared, how much to get a version for casa de Joystiq?
"Hey, do you remember the time I went to Chuck E. Cheese with former president William Jefferson Clinton?"
Bill Clinton, Chuck E Cheese and Dance Dance Revolution. O, those manatees doth weave a clever tale. Game site 1P Start proves how fast the internet works by already having this clip from last night's Family Guy uploaded and blogged.
We laugh, but only because we can see the actual former U.S. President Bill Clinton playing DDR. Maybe not to an Aqua song, but perhaps .59 or Afronova. Video embedded after the break.
If you have a pre-teen or know anybody into musicals, than by this point you are well versed in High School Musical, the Disney channel made-for-TV stealth phenomenon. In August, Disney will unleash the game as a Karaoke Revolution-style title on the Wii and PS2. For the DS version the release says, "Fans will dance and play along with the movie's songs and create their own dance videos in order to win the national title." We have no idea what that means and Disney Interactive isn't returning our calls to explain -- is there some DS camera we don't know about?
The launch of the games is expected to coincide with the release of High School Musical 2. There will also be bonus tracks from other popular Disney Channel artists -- that's so Raven! We apologize for the interruption and now return you to our regularly scheduled chest-beating and macho programming.
Much like its title implies, Guitar Hero arrived as a sort of savior for a rhythm genre that had grown a little too obsessed with hypnotic arrows for its own good. The rocking success of Red Octane's franchise thrust the genre back into the console limelight, with its financial gyrations quickly drawing the fixation of several publishers. According to a recent interview conducted by Stephen Totilo of MTV News, EA is one such a publisher.
Upon being asked about EA's plans in response to the success enjoyed by titles such as Guitar Hero and Dance Dance Revolution, EA's Worldwide Executive of Music and Marketing indicates that the gigantic publisher is already positioning itself on the diving board. "I've been pushing for a long time to be honest with you," says Steve Schnur. "I think you'll see us breaking into the genre sooner than you think."
Of course, one could argue that EA is already doing so with the upcoming Boom Boom Rocket, an Xbox Live Arcade title which sees (and hears) players detonating fireworks in rhythm to music. Is the Bizarre-developed title merely the first step in an increasingly complex dance maneuver? And more importantly, will there be an insane peripheral? If anybody's going to exploit the untapped Glockenspiel-breakdancing market, it'll be EA.
It's the 10 year anniversary for Konami's legendary Bemani series of rhythm titles and you know what that means! More sequels! Okay, so they're not doing much out of the ordinary aside from some choice merchandising opportunities, but if you're a Bemani fan, sequels to your favorite series are about all could ask for at this point.
Bemanistyle attended AOU this weekend to check out the latest batch of assembly line titles in Beatmania IIDX 14: Gold (featuring Ghostbusters), GitaDora V4 and the all-star of the bunch, Pop'n Music 15: Adventure. Yes, it took fifteen sequels but we finally get character previews in Pop'n Music. Whose to say they don't work hard for the money now?
A few of the artists were on-hand, conducting interviews and generally fawning to their audience. Also making an appearance was Dance Dance Revolution Supernova 2, albeit in poster-form only.
Perhaps Seizure Party would have been a more appropriate subtitle, as Konami's latest Dance Dance Revolution game will require the simultaneous use of three peripherals: a dance mat, a Wii remote and a Wii nunchuck. The Bemani developer has announced that their decidedly groovy franchise will pay a visit to the Wii, with Dance Dance Revolution: Hottest Party releasing sometime before 2007 keels over from pure exhaustion.
The game will feature all the modes series fans are familiar with, though we expect they really mean it with Workout Mode this time. Konami also encourages players to invite up to three friends for fantastic and potentially dangerous multiplayer stomping, flailing and gyrating. Remember, it's not embarassing if you enjoy it.
Forget for a moment that libraries are supposedly places where one can go for some quiet reading. Forget too that librarians are typically known for being shushers and squelchers of anything resembling fun. Finally, forget that there's an inverse relationship between time spent exercising and time spent sitting in a library.
Now you're ready to accept the wackiness of a situation in which a teenaged librarian uses DDR (Dance Dance Revolution) to settle disputes between patrons and to determine whether an overdue fine should be waived. Totally awesome, if completely inappropriate in a library environment.
A recent Mayo Clinic study may indicate that kids burn significantly more calories while playing active games (e.g., Dance Dance Revolution Ultramix 2, Wii Sports) than while engaged in sit-down games. That this conclusion seems obvious is part of the problem.
Parents may now be more content than ever to plop their kids in front of the TV if they perceive that a few hours of active gaming will substitute for necessary exercise. Even if kids, on average, burn twice as many calories while on the dancepad than while button-smashing a gamepad, they're still simply engaged in virtual activity. Wii Sports might be all the rage but "touching a virtual ball is not the same thing as catching a real ball," warns Active Healthy Kids Canada director of development Jennifer Cowie Bonne, "You need those types of [real life] fundamental skills to build a foundation for a lifelong involvement in other types of physical activity." You wouldn't want Junior to grow up throwing baseballs like a pansy, would you?
Are you secretly producing some sort of euro-trash-cum-bubbly-pop wonder song that could whip the whole world into a certain state of stomping in place? Konami sure hopes so, as they're once again teaming up with Broadjam to find the next big thing in Dance Dance Revolution -- you!
Konami is looking for songs that are at least a minute and a half long, above 120 beats per minute and include "strong and/or catchy melodies." Any chosen songwriters will get $1,000 and have their music featured in a future game, but, as the contest site oddly notes, "There is no guarantee there will be any winners." Considering you have to pay up to $20 just to enter, it sounds like someone could be making out like a bandit here.
Last year's contest produced four winning entries, all of which debuted (and coincidentally, died) on DDR Ultramix 4 for the original Xbox. With Konami pouring less and less original effort into songs for their Bemani series, contests like these are increasingly valuable to them. It's either this or they dig through the dusty Beatmania library for one more go of "20, November."
Posts with tag dance dance revolution
There's an alarming epidemic facing high school graduates in this country. No, we're not talking about literacy or obesity or anything so unimportant. We're talking about video games. Get your priorities straight, people!
The place may be overrun with deadly monstrosities and the overwhelming powers of darkness, but the tunes that echo throughout the hallways of Dracula's castle usually make the vampire killing ordeal worth it. Sensing that others might share the dark lord's fine taste in orchestral compositions, Konami has announced an agreement with Sony BMG Music to distribute its library of tunes through mobile service providers and online music retailers, including iTunes and Rhapsody. The deal encompasses soundtracks beyond those belonging to the obvious Dance Dance Revolution franchise, even catering to those that find the clanging pipes and grating gears of Silent Hill preferable to the latest Ashlee Simpson squealfest.
If you have a pre-teen or know anybody into musicals, than by this point you are well versed in High School Musical, the Disney channel made-for-TV stealth phenomenon. In August, Disney will unleash the game as a Karaoke Revolution-style title on the Wii and PS2. For the DS version the release says, "Fans will dance and play along with the movie's songs and create their own dance videos in order to win the national title." We have no idea what that means and Disney Interactive isn't returning our calls to explain -- is there some DS camera we don't know about?
It's the 10 year anniversary for Konami's legendary Bemani series of rhythm titles and you know what that means! More sequels! Okay, so they're not doing much out of the ordinary aside from some choice merchandising opportunities, but if you're a Bemani fan, sequels to your favorite series are about all could ask for at this point.
Forget for a moment that libraries are supposedly places where one can go for some quiet reading. Forget too that librarians are typically known for being shushers and squelchers of anything resembling fun. Finally, forget that there's an inverse relationship between time spent exercising and time spent sitting in a library.
A recent Mayo Clinic study may indicate that kids burn significantly more calories while playing active games (e.g., Dance Dance Revolution Ultramix 2, Wii Sports) than while engaged in sit-down games. That this conclusion seems obvious is part of the problem.
Are you secretly producing some sort of euro-trash-cum-bubbly-pop wonder song that could whip the whole world into a certain state of stomping in place? Konami sure hopes so, as they're once again teaming up with Broadjam to find the next big thing in Dance Dance Revolution -- you!
_thumbnail.jpg "i am 8-bit: 2008")
