Product Description

Never before has a Dancing Stage title catered so well for the novice and seasoned Dancing Stage pro. With a completely new section dedicated to first time players, everyone will be able to pick up the buts and bolts from the start. The Basic Mode starts with How to Play, moves on to Lesson Mode where you have 22 tasks set to help you learn every move and technique of the game before progressing onto a Lite Mode where you have to complete songs to unlock the next one. Once 15 have been passed, you`re ready for the full game.

Of course, experience players can skip straight to the nitty gritty, where a couple of new modes have been included to cater for their needs. There`s now a continuous Megamix Mode where songs come at you one after another, as if in a nightclub so you`ll have an entire set to dance to. There`s also a Relay Mode where players can swap with other players in the room to keep up with the marathon pace.

There have been tweaks and edits to the many existing options, so fans of the Workout Mode, Edit Mode, Quest Mode and Party Mode will find themselves with improved game play and more to keep them entertained.

There will be many Xbox Live enabled online competitions as well as the options to download new songs and dance steps, upload content, compete head-to-head, view internet ranking, instant messaging, live chat and more! There will also be new Xbox 360 exclusive downloadable song packs.

• First Xbox 360 dancing stage title
• Totally revamped beginners mode
• Non-stop `megamixes` offer new continuous challenges
• Over 65 new songs
• Full Xbox Live compatibility
  
  

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2506 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Konami
• Released on: 2007-12-07
• Rating: To Be Announced
• Platform: Xbox 360
• Dimensions: 2.98 pounds

Manufacturer's Description

Never before has a Dancing Stage title catered so well for the novice and seasoned Dancing Stage pro. With a completely new section dedicated to first time players, everyone will be able to pick up the buts and bolts from the start. The Basic Mode starts with How to Play, moves on to Lesson Mode where you have 22 tasks set to help you learn every move and technique of the game before progressing onto a Lite Mode where you have to complete songs to unlock the next one. Once 15 have been passed, you're ready for the full game.

Of course, experience players can skip straight to the nitty gritty, where a couple of new modes have been included to cater for their needs. There's now a continuous Megamix Mode where songs come at you one after another, as if in a nightclub so you'll have an entire set to dance to. There's also a Relay Mode where players can swap with other players in the room to keep up with the marathon pace.

There have been tweaks and edits to the many existing options, so fans of the Workout Mode, Edit Mode, Quest Mode and Party Mode will find themselves with improved game play and more to keep them entertained.

There will be many Xbox Live enabled online competitions as well as the options to download new songs and dance steps, upload content, compete head-to-head, view internet ranking, instant messaging, live chat and more! There will also be new Xbox 360 exclusive downloadable song packs.

Customer Reviews

Insanely addictive, entertaining and SO good for you!
When this game arrived I couldn't wait to plug the dance mat into my 360 and get started. As a total novice to the dance game genre, I had to start right at the basic training steps (of which there are loads, so you can completely start to grasp some of the stuff you'll need to play the real game). Once you do a few of these training segments, you'll start getting the hang of it, although please don't be tempted to set the difficulty to anything beyond 'beginner' if, like me, you were a first-timer. I attempted to dance the steps to "Girls" by the Prodigy on 'Basic' before I had spent some time getting to grips with 'beginner' and I looked like a prize idiot. The songs in the game are fantastic, with many challenging musical motifs (e.g. weird time signatures, upbeat tempos etc) and the Party and Challenge modes are fabulous.
If you're looking for a game to get friends and/or family involved with and have a laugh (not to mention help you keep fit.. this game has a CALORIE COUNTER!!!) or even if you fancy losing your two left feet and getting your groove on, BUY THIS GAME!

Fun with Flaws
I've dabbled with Dancing Stage games in the past, but I'm by no means an expert. I was pleased to see they have different difficulty levels, even for us humble beginners. The music is quite good - although like many things it's down for your personal taste - and there's a variety of modes (including the wonderful calorie burning feature!)

One criticism is the instructional manual is rather vague, leaving me scratching my head in Quest mode.

The dancemat supplied also has a habit of sliding its way across the (carpeted) floor whenever you're using it.

Still, if you're a fan of dancing, or just someone wanting to get fit to a bit of music, this is fun way to pass the time.

Most players will only see a quarter of the game
It should be a winner. Everyone's trying to come up with a 'new' way to play games nowadays. All the major companies are trying to attract 'casual' and female gamers. Nintendo's got the wii's motion sensitivity and the DS's touch pad. The Guitar Hero is doing great business on the PS3 and Xbox 360 and later this year Rock Band will test exactly how much the European public really is willing to play for a new piece of plastic to play games on. In the meantime we've got the good old dance-mat based rhythmic tapping game of Dancing Stage.

This is the third or fourth incarnation of the title on Microsoft's consoles. So you would think it would be even better than what came before, right? Well, unfortunately the previous versions weren't actually all that hot to begin with. And this one isn't really that much better either.

The blurb says it has all sorts of new stuff for beginners to play with. There is a brain numbingly slow and simple 'beginners mode' for sure. But thats really only going to be a challenge for your infirm granny and she really shouldn't be exerting herself all that much at this stage in her life anyway, should she?

So moving on the proper version of the game, there are two difficulty settings for newcomers, its true. But one is so easy it appears to have been designed for toddler learning to walk. Step to the left, two, three, four. To the right, two, three four. And so on. the next is slightly more uptempo - left, right, left, right,forwards, back, forwards, back, - and a bit more fun. Its not hard though, so you'll quickly clear all the songs immediately available to you and gather an easy 200 gamerpoints.

Now you need to unlock more songs via the quest mode. This mode sets you various challenges without really explaining that all but the first are actually impossible to clear. The routines set for the challenges do not give you enough points or special steps, even if done perfectly, to meet the targets. Your only choice really is to bump up the difficulty to either Expert or Difficult (its not clear which is actually harder) at which point the learning curve is so steep as to be laughable. I found one challenge impossible to beat at Beginner difficulty so I tried it again at Difficult and was reduced to just tapping one pad repeatedly as a stream of arrows literally flashed up on the screen. Sometimes I coincidentally hit the pad at the right time.

There are supposed to be co-op modes in the game, such as 'relay' which is described as being a way to switch who is playing partway through songs. But as far as I can tell you have to have a dance mat for everyone taking part. Two players = two dance mats. If you only have one dance mat there is no way for two players to play at the same time. If you have two profiles on your Xbox you will need to log each one out every time you want to switch.Its not massively hard to do, but its not exactly the wild party promised on the box either.

Workout mode is really nothing special either. You simply tell the game how much you weigh, toggle on a counter, and the game then estimates the calories you burn through from that point on, whatever mode you play in. Then you can view a record of the energy you've spent and, if you like, update your weight.

Its hard to imagine anyone really losing a serious amount of flab playing this though - you'll probably clear all the songs at the level you are comfortable with and be too discouraged by the difficulty of the next level up to find anything new to do.

All in all, disappointing. Apart from flashy new loading screens and video backgrounds there's not really much new here for anyone without multiple dancemats and partners to play with. For the hardcore who are really good at these things I can see it being worth the expense. But for the rest of us there really isn't enough here to keep you off the couch and traditional controllers for long.