Dance Factory – PS2 – Review

The dance-mat genre has long been
dominated by Konami’s ultra-popular Dance Dance Revolution (DDR). There have
been several similar titles in recent years, such as the half-way decent Pump It
Up, most famous in arcades, but none could top DDR’s addicting formula – or,
better yet, provide anything substantially different from DDR’s recipe.

One complaint concerning games of
this genre is how you’re unable to dance to your own music, rather merely the
in-game soundtrack that may not always be stellar. Moreover, the only real
incentive to purchase an updated version of a mat-based title in the past few
years has been for greater song selection. The developers of Dance Factory have
put their foot down to this nonsense and in return created a piece of software
that allows you to employ your own CDs directly into the game. The “Factory”
will generate dance steps to the tracks, obviously varying on each song’s tempo.

I know some of you may be wondering
if burned CDRs, as opposed to official albums, will work with Dance Factory.
This was one of my foremost fears before playing as I buy a great deal of music
on iTunes. I’m pleased to say it will recognize any format – official or burned.
A major downside to all of this is it won’t distinguish the track titles no
matter what type of CD you put in, thus forcing you to use guesswork when
choosing a track or actually going through the hassle of naming the songs.

The actual process of implementing
your own music takes a fairly short amount of time. Additionally, you’ll be
treated to a mini-game to pass the time as Dance Factory does its business.
Cubric, the title of this contraption, plays out like a low-production SNES
game, where your goal is to make sure the blocks that are being thrown at the
middle of the screen don’t connect to like-colors.

Dance Factory is nearly identical in
every conceivable way to Dance Dance Revolution in how it plays. Either using a
controller or a dance mat, you have to tap in the direction the arrows are
pointing on your screen. Doing so efficiently will result in points and,
eventually, combos that will result in additional points. This is a simplistic
concept that nearly anyone – gamer or not – can get into without any
frustration.

There are a few modes available:
normal, endurance, EyeToy Camera, fitness, record, and creature. Normal mode
lets you shake your tail feather to an individual track. Endurance is precisely
the same as normal except you can consecutively listen to tracks without getting
a points roundup after each song. EyeToy Camera mode does just what its name
suggests – it puts your EyeToy to use to make things even more hectic by forcing
you to use your hands as well as your mat. Fitness, my favorite feature out of
the bunch, will give you an estimate of how many calories you have burned. This
is a nice facet for health-cautious players. Record is a sort of peculiar
aspect, where instead of letting the game generate steps for your CDs, you do so
manually. The last mode here, and without a doubt the worst of the bunch, is
creature. Here the game will compose a character out of what appears to be
Playdo. You’ll have the ability to dress him in bling (sunglasses, hats, etc)
and have him dance with you in lieu of a background theme. This has to be one of
the most useless things I’ve ever seen in a video game to date, but its sheer
quirkiness is commendable. Dance Factory’s multiplayer offering is much of the
same, where you have battle, cooperative, creature battle, and tournament play
(great for parties).

If you’re not keen on using your own
music, Dance Factory sports five of its own licensed tracks for your dancing
pleasure from the likes of the Pussycat Dolls, Rihanna, the Bodyrockers, Tim
McGraw, and Kool & the Gang. This game is also compatible with any dance-mat on
the market, so no need to worry about having to purchase an official Dance
Factory mat.

Dance Factory’s feature list reads
like a dance-mat gamer’s dream. However, the steps this game creates are not
always on beat. In fact, at times they’re downright off. While trying to get my
groove on to George Michael’s “Faith,” I was appalled by how slow and out of
rhythm the moves were. There’s also no sense of progression in songs. For
example, if a number begins slow and builds up throughout, the steps generated
will seldom be representative. When you couple this with exceedingly broke
visuals and presentation, you abruptly come to the realization this isn’t a
dream come true, rather a poorly executed effort that would have fared much
better on a hard-drive-based platform.

Gameplay: 7.0
The gameplay here is identical DDR and pretty much every other mat-based
title ever released. Is this necessarily a bad thing? No, but there’s not much
meat here nonetheless and I would have killed for some online functionality.

Graphics: 5.5
Absolutely dreadful background themes are just the beginning to Dance
Factory’s sub-par visuals. Due to the actual game disc not being in your PS2’s
tray while playing with your own audio CD, Dance Factory must rely entirely on
stored memory. As previously mentioned, if this were on a console with a
built-in HD, presentation issues would be nonexistent, but as it stands, Dance
Factory is a technical nightmare.

Sound: 10.0
This is a given. If you have superb musical taste (which I’m sure you do, in
your opinion), then you’ll want to turn the sound all the way up. The five
tracks included aren’t too shabby, either.

Difficulty: Medium
Range of difficulty will ultimately depend on how experienced you are with
this genre. For novice players, switching the difficulty to its lowest setting
will benefit greatly.

Concept: 8.0
Dance Factory’s intentions are in the correct mindset. But on one hand, the
execution is so substandard that the gamer is left thinking what could have been
done, rather than enjoying what’s on his plate.

Multiplayer: 7.1
There’s definitely no denying you’re going to have a better time playing
this one with a couple of friends. Online play would have helped raise the fun
factor even more, though.

Overall: 6.9
On the whole, Dance Factory is a gem and a sour apple simultaneously. It
tries to do so much, but it just doesn’t respectively deliver what it promised.
The dance steps it generates are dead-on with some tracks, but far from
acceptable on others. Its grainy visuals could have been improved upon as well.
The outcome here is a mixed-bag that fans of the genre are better off skipping
and holding out for a game that fully utilizes this concept.