The Kinect shines brightly with this upbeat and fun dance party title.
THE GOOD
-Entertaining for parties and all skill levels
-Great song selection
-Motion tracking works well
THE BAD
-Workout mode feels like a rushed afterthought
-Photo capturing is awkward
OVERVIEW
Dance Central brings the thrill of the night life into the comfort of your own home. This flashy Kinect title teaches you and your friends a wide assortment of the latest moves that will keep you dancing all through the night. Whether you're a regular at the club or a hopeless novice with two left feet, the generous difficulty settings and helpful tutorials ensures that anyone can party like its 1999. Avatars like Angel, Mo and the sassy Miss Aubrey perform the dance moves for you to follow along while their cheeky banter encourages you to relax and have fun. Dance Central has over 30 heart pumping tracks from the 70s, 80s, 90s, and 2000s in the Pop, Hip-hop and Electronica genres..
GAMEPLAY
There are five different modes of play in Dance Central which include Perform It, Workout Mode, Dance Battle, Challenge Mode and Break It Down. Perform It is the normal single player mode where your goal is to rack up as many points as you can based on how well you execute each dance move. Queue cards with pictures of the dance moves show up on the right side of the screen scrolling upward in time with the beat. A helpful avatar is also there right in front of you dancing the routine in real time. During the midway point, the music vamps and allows you to bust out your own moves which is all recorded by your handy Kinect sensor. This neat idea is marred by the weird playback feature which only captures a few snippets and plays it back 4 times normal speed. Seeing yourself dancing around like a chipmunk on speed is fun the first time but then it just seems stupid. One nice feature is that all the tracks are unlocked from the get-go and each song has an easy, medium and hard setting ensuring that anyone can have fun.
Workout is a slight variation to Perform It with the addition of a total calorie count tracking your progress. The calorie tracking algorithm seems sketchy especially since ticker runs while you're idle so it's hard to justify the accuracy of this feature. Another setback is that you have to constantly return to the menu after each song to pick the next track which decreases the effectiveness of the workout because you're resting to frequently. Overall the entire workout mode seems like an afterthought rather than a full on feature.
If you have friends over (local support only, no online functionality), Dance Battle is your one-stop shop to getting the party started. In this dance-off, two contenders bump, grind and groove to the same song individually and the person with the highest score is crowned the champion. Since there isn't simultaneous action, player two has a slight advantage because they get to see the dance routine in advance which is a slight bummer. But besides this, Dance Battle is the preferred way to play in Dance Central and offers many fun and memorable moments with friends and family.
The Challenge mode isn't for the faint of heart. After completing all the songs in a group, this final assessment is unlocked to test your mastery of the bundle. The Challenge mode goes through brief snippets of each song in a medley fashion. Successfully rising up to task is rewarding and quite difficult.
Seeing hundreds of the latest dance moves may seem intimidating to the beginners out there which is why Dance Central let's you learn the moves in Break It Down. The developers over at Harmonix knew that the majority of the people playing this game wouldn't have the skills of a Jennifer Lopez or Justin Timberlake which is why this mode was added. This tutorial does an excellent job breaking each move up and helping you learn what to do. You still may not be a pro but you'll definitely be able to have some fun.
Dance Central may not be the top seller for the Kinect but as far as the efficiency of the motion tracking goes, this game leaves them all in the dust. Now that's not to say that it's perfect because the wonky menu navigation is proof of that it doesn't always respond correctly. However, the Kinect sensor does a very good job in picking up your every motion. To help ensure that you are always in the field of vision, a colored silhouette shows you exactly where you are in regards to the sensor. This allows you to make quick adjustments on the fly. Additionally, the avatar's limbs will glow red indicating which appendage is out of sync.
GRAPHICS & SOUND
The colorful art style is unique, flashy and totally fits the theme of a raving dance club. The on-screen Avatars do a great job in performing the moves in time with the beat which make it fairly easy to follow along. The graphics aren't going to blow you away but they are pretty good compared to the other Kinect titles in the market.
Dance Central is filled with Pop, Hip-hop, and R&B hits from the 70s, 80s, 90s, and 2000s. There are over 30 songs preinstalled including Funkytown, Push It, and Poker Face and a huge library of additional songs to download from the Xbox Live Marketplace. With so many options, the replay value is really high for this game.
CONCLUSION
Dance Central is an uplifting dancing experience that's fun for all skill levels. This game really excels in a party atmosphere with a bunch of friends gathered around to play. The Kinect sensor works surprisingly well and makes Dance Central feel more like a core game instead of a fantasy tech demo. For those that have the new hardware, this is definite purchase. So grab your friends and clear the living room because Dance Central is sure to be the life of the party.