Pump It Up:
Exceed has been billed as the anti-DDR. "While other dance games arbitrarily
assign positions to a dancer’s feet," the press release states, "Pump It Up
features choreographed steps for each song and a five button mat that lets the
step designers reward players for not just where they put their feet, but how
the feet got there." Sounds like an intriguing premise and a massive promise.
On the box it says, "This game is all about real dancing, like in a club, with
enough levels and modes for everyone and a unique five-button dance mat that
lets you move just like you do on the dance floor." Another massive promise.
Can a developer possibly find a way that melds the two together so perfectly
that you mistake gameplay for a night club performance?
Pump It Up:
Exceed comes to America with 101 songs, varying degrees of difficulty, and a
soft dance mat that doesn’t fall apart the minute you start playing. Its
unique arrow layout (which includes a fifth dance spot: the center of the mat)
is likely to have intimidated inexperienced dancers. I was a little concerned
about that, but figured if I could learn DDR I could learn anything.
Less than
120 seconds into the first dance I realized something: no matter how good or
bad the game turns out to be, these guys know how to assign dance moves. No
enormous learning curve was present. "Come ‘on," I said to the game, talking
to the screen as I always do. "You must be joking." It wasn’t.
A kindergarten class was
thrown into disarray when "A" and "C" mysteriously disappeared from the
alphabet. The teacher said they were good letters, always first in class and
ready to be formed into words. She couldn’t figure out where they had gone,
but we have photographic evidence (above) as to their whereabouts.
It took one
song to learn where the arrows were, where my feet should go, and to memorize
the arrows’ locations for jumps and consecutive moves. The arrows are on the
right and left side of the top and the bottom of the mat. Sounds difficult
when we’re used to having our arrows stuck in a plus symbol, but it’s very
intuitive. A few songs later and I felt like I had been playing the game for
months, which might not be what you were looking for if you expected PUI to be
the anti-DDR it’s hyped up to be. In reality it’s pro-DDR; a game that
complements Konami’s worldwide hit with more songs than you can bust a groove
at.
PUI’s
gameplay mechanics dispel the real dance move theory, throwing arrows up on
the screen in patterns that are identical to DDR. The screenshots confirmed
this months ago, though I was hopeful they were misleading. It doesn’t make
much of a difference if you’re jumping, walking in place, or strutting some
other DDR move, the requirement is the same: hit all the arrows at the right
spot before they disappear. A fair requirement, but not a revolutionary one. I
could swing my body in various ways to simulate real-life dancing, but why
would I want to? Is that the point of the game – to make this look as real as
possible? I thought it was supposed to do that on its own.
Could someone get a
spatula? My face is stuck to the screen again
Dance games
are usually a little more expensive than other games due to the included dance
mat. You can purchase PUI separately for $40, but using a game controller to
dance –- that can’t be fun for anyone. The $60 package includes the soft mat
developed exclusively for this game by Mad Catz. Their design is much higher
in quality than other soft mats I’ve tested. It’s slightly heavier (weight
equals durability when it’s an object that’s being jumped on), and has a
sticky, rigid bottom that prevents it from sliding. The faster you move the
more likely it is that it will too, but the mat is generally a sturdy
peripheral that was well worth the extra $20.
The new Home
Mode was designed specifically for home play and allows you to play through
each song without failure. That’s right, dance to your heart’s consent. Tap
all the arrows, half the arrows, hit ’em out of order – it doesn’t really
matter. The game accepts anything. It’s a good practice mode, though since you
aren’t forced to do anything it’s not the best way to become a master. You’ll
still have to be challenged – and beat the songs the way they’re meant to be
beat (by hitting all the arrows) – to accomplish that.
Musically
the game is nearly on par with Dance Dance Revolution and has more variety,
featuring rap, rock, techno, pop, orchestral and various genre combinations.
The vast majority of the songs are from artists American listeners have never
heard of, thus they only become catchy and memorable in the dance game
environment. Somehow that’s good enough – by the end of the first hour I was
humming PUI beats and went back to play through the songs that were stuck in
my head.
Pump It Up:
Exceed isn’t the most original music game on the market, but in the end its
fun factor prevailed. I think of it as another version of DDR. It’s not a
sequel obviously, but plays like a Konami-built variation. The developers must
be huge fans to have been able to take the best parts of that game and apply
it to their own. The price is steep – that’s true of any dance game. If you
want more than just DDR to dance to but don’t want drastic changes, Pump It Up
is a must-buy.
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Gameplay: 7.2
Pump It Up:
Exceed sounds like a DDR clone, but don’t be fooled: clones are knock-offs
that damage what the original game was trying to do. Pump It Up: Exceed
complements DDR in the same way that strawberry jam complements peanut butter
and bread. Peanut butter is fine by itself. Mix it with some homemade jam and
you may never eat one without the other again.
Graphics: 6.9
Pump It Up:
Exceed’s music videos and animation sequences were not necessary to make the
game fun, and are a little distracting at times. A couple of them have
animation that flashes way too quickly. The flash tends to interfere with
trying to stay in-sync with the dance pattern, deterring most players from
wanting to play them.
This isn’t
the norm – most of the songs have non-distractive video. Clear picture, zero
pixelation.
Sound: 7.9
"A music game is
only as good as its soundtrack." I’m sure I’ve said that once or twice.
Although true, Pump It Up’s soundtrack is not spectacular, yet after playing
it for a few hours you’d swear otherwise. It has the same effect DDR had on
gamers: we’ll say pop music is bad if MTV shoves it down our throats, but
stick it in an addictive dance game and it’s golden.
Difficulty: Easy/Medium
I wouldn’t call
PUI training wheels for DDR, but it did seem a little easier to get the hang
of than the dancing revolution. Yeah, I know that’s probably because I’ve been
playing DDR for a year. But PUI has a Home Mode that lets you continue dancing
whether you miss all the arrows or not.
Concept: 7.0
Dance Dance
Revolution with an extra dance button and a (mostly) original collection of
music. Not revolutionary, not at all groundbreaking, but it gives Konami a
reason to pump their game up a bit now that real competition exists.
Multiplayer: 7.4
Double the
dancing fun, but only if you nab a second dance mat.
Overall: 7.2
The $60 price tag
would normally be enough to make me say, "This is fun, but not 9.0 fun. Save
your loot." However, there isn’t a game on the planet that can replace DDR,
and none of its prior competitors were worth playing. PUI is the closest thing
you’ll get to something different. And even if that is only a slight
difference, one can forget what isn’t there when the content it does provide
is really good. If nothing else, DDR fans must rent this.
