E3 2011: Dance Central 2 First Impressions Preview

With the help of two very talented dancers, Harmonix unveiled Dance Central 2 at the Microsoft E3 2011 press conference today. Its headline features include Kinect voice control, a campaign mode, and a feature that was sorely missing from the original; drop-in, drop-out, simultaneous two-player dancing. Harmonix kept details on most of those new features to itself but did show off the new two-player mode.

The demo was played by two dancers who were clearly more talented than the average gamer. Nonetheless, their skilful moves helped to keep the action flowing onscreen. Like Dance Central, the sequel displayed actions down the side of screen, showing the player what moves to perform. Some of those on show included Blazer Slide, Snap Tap, and the aptly named Click Walker, which saw the two dancers doing a walking motion while clicking at the same time.

Aside from the addition of two players, Dance Central looked otherwise identical to its predecessor. The limbs of the onscreen avatars changed to different colours to highlight each dancer's performance, while bright lighting effects and a cheering virtual crowd highlighted perfect moves. Dance Central owners will be happy to know that all their songs can be imported into the sequel, though Microsoft did not say whether there would be a fee involved.

Harmonix also revealed some of the artists and tracks that are making their way into the game. These include Rihanna's Rude Boy, Nicki Minaj's Massive Attack, Montell Jordan's This Is How We Do It, La Roux's Bulletproof, Far East Movement's Like a G6, B.o.B's Nothin' on You, Bananarama's Venus, and Usher's DJ Got Us Fallin' In Love. We'll be getting our hands on Dance Central on the E3 show floor, so keep reading GameSpot for more soon.