In Sony/Blue Lava's Groove Fever, you must press buttons on your phone to the beat of a generic MIDI score. Two tracks of numbers move up the screen. When a number reaches the top, you must press the corresponding button at just the right time. Get enough numbers right, and you can proceed to the next stage. A sprite dances to the music while you mash buttons, and, in theory, the patterns of numbers correspond to the music's beat. In practice, there doesn't seem to be much of a connection between them; the music's beat has a passing connection, at best, to the patterns of numbers, and the dancing sprite just goes through his or her motions, regardless of your success in the game.
Unless you're being chased by a rampaging zombie army, you usually don't need to punch in a number into your cell in under three seconds, but to keep up with Groove Fever's frenetic parade of numbers, you must use both thumbs to mash two separate rows of buttons. Admittedly, developers have to work with what they're given, but there's a fine line between ramming a design into an interface and using that interface to the best of its capabilities. Unfortunately, Groove Fever goes for the first option. It simply lacks the interface for anything other than a frustrating experience. Despite several attempts to vary how I held the phone, the basic gameplay was more of a test of my patience than a test of my skill.
In addition to the basic gameplay mode, Groove Fever offers the option to download new songs and the ability to create your own levels by inputting new patterns of numbers for each song. The game can save one new pattern for each song at each difficulty level. These features are cool, but there doesn't seem to be any option for sharing them with other users. You could make up ridiculously easy levels if you really want to beat the game, and if you pass your phone around to your friends, it could provide a change of pace. However, this option seems to cry out for networked play. The ability to download new songs is a neat one, but since the dancing sprite and music have only a passing connection to the beat you need to tap out on your phone, they don't offer a truly distinct challenge.
Despite its cool online options, Groove Fever struggles to fit the dance game premise onto a cell phone. Similar games, such as Ministry of Sound Dance Nation, have already delivered groovin' gameplay in a cleaner and more-playable format.
