If you can swallow how different this game is from the KCET games, you'll do fine.
DDR Ultramix 2 is the second DDR mix for the Xbox released in 2004. There are about 70 songs here and the game supports up to four players. There are new modes that are unimpressive including one where you set up four dance pads and play a game of 16 pannels by yourself. The additions feel tacked on and are not important.
If you compare this game to the mixes made by KCET, its just not as streamlined and well structured. Just about every department of the game has imperfections that are a pet-peeve.
There are a ton of new songs here but many of them are not very good and feel like they belong in "In the groove". Instead of concentrating on licensing good catchy music, the developers opted instead for boring or uninteresting like "Don't Stop" (not the DR.VIBE song from IIDX, that one rules), "Sleepwalker", "Tittle Tattle", "Disco Break", "Red Room", "Life is a game", "Play my game", "La Cucaracha", "Wherever you are", and about 30 other songs that sound so generic or just don't fit in the game. The developers also contracted some rather unknown firms to produce music in Ultramix 2. The good news is that they sound a hell of a lot better than Thuggie D. I like the remixes of "MAX 300", "i feel...", "In my eyes", and "Make a Jam." There is one particular firm that really stunk though, and that was from the firm Big Idea. This stinker did a remix of "La Cucaracha" (how original, really) as well as a song about a guy who was fooled by a monkey called "Monkey Punk". The game does still have some pretty good songs. One of my favorite 4th Mix songs "Night in Motion" was used as well as a cover of Irene Cara and Giorgio Moreder's "Flashdance". A new song called "Skulk" is quite remarkable and should be in a Dancemania album. Good-Cool rules the house with some of my favorite IIDX songs such as "19, November" and "VJ Army". One of the few L.E.D. songs that I like has been transplanted "The Big Voyager". Shinji Hosoe, a legend in the video game music world is included with "Route 80's" from the beatmania IIDX series.
Next up, the graphics, why does this game have a choppy framerate? I don't undertand, all the game has is a rather generic and low resolution movies, cell shaded characters (that have choreography, I like that), and nasty looking arrows. I think the game needed more beta testing, it feels rushed.
Finally, what is up with those song banners? They look so ugly and uninteresting. I have played simfiles on Stepmania with professional quality banners and backgrounds. The Ultramix 2 banners use generic fonts. How dare they remove the classic good-cool logo in favor of a generic font?
Overall, Ultramix 2 is too different for its own good. If they spent more time on fixing the technical issues and getting better licensed songs, this would have been one of the better mixes out there. Do be warned that this is one of the harder mixes out there with some pretty nasty TRICK step patterns for say more than ten songs. But that's good and not a complaint.