Dance Dance Revolution Ultramix 2

Added February 11th, 2005 by Dakota Grabowski

Introduction:

We all love the arcades as they were known as the “sweet spot” for all your favorite fighting games.  The arcades also sported some of the best racing games that were interactive on your steering, braking and even crashing with the car.  You could even find classic rail shooters within the arcades that oozed with creativity.  But, last time I visited an arcade, it wasn’t the same anymore.  People were dancing and it was actually more of a competition than anything.  Yes, people were having a dance-off in the arcade on special mats.   It felt like a clichéd 80’s movie.  I was amazed that they were able to grasp a hold of what was flying by on the screen and still dance to commands. After that, two other players joined the frenzy. It was rather evident that it was their first time due to their horrible dance moves.  This was my first time watching Dance Dance Revolution in full motion.  I presumed it would be my last, as I felt it wouldn’t become overly popular.  Well, guess what.  This fad actually has now amounted to over 2.5 million units sold in the US since 2001 and it’s not dying anytime soon.  I wanted to experience this myself, but at home, due to wanting to avoid any kind of embarrassment in the arcade.  Read on for my full impressions.

Gameplay:

The set up for DDR Ultramix 2 is ultimately the same as the original Ultramix.  The music plays and arrows scroll up the screen for the player(s) to react to them prior to disappearing from sight.  What’s new is that there are several new playable modes.  New modes include Quad Mode, Synch Mode & Team Battle Mode.  Quad Mode has a requirement of four dance pads for you to dance on.  This sounds quite difficult but due to that I don’t have four dance pads for my own use, I wasn’t able to participate in this mode.  I am figuring that not too many will either with the fact it requires four dance pads.  Team Battle Mode will pair off two teams head to head to determine which possesses the most skills.  Synch Mode requires you to work cooperatively with a friend to ‘synchronize’ your steps together.  Xbox Live is back and now has four times the players as the previous one, amounting to 16, but I will cover the Xbox Live component shortly.  There’s not too much radically new in the gameplay that has Ultramix 2 standing out above Ultramix 1 on the Xbox.

Graphics:

DDR Ultramix 2 isn’t supposed to be a graphical masterpiece, which, of course, it isn’t.  The menus have been touched up, but nothing that someone would catch while playing with friends.  New characters and even downloadable ones are available.  During your dance session, the backgrounds will change to give the impression of a music video of sorts.  Some of the backgrounds make you feel as if you are on crack and the colors quickly change to give you a feeling of dizziness when watching.  Some backgrounds have actual videos attached to them.  There’s one with a women’s pop band in a boxing ring singing.  Kind of funny if you ask me, as the music just seems so bland sometimes.  More on that in a second, but the graphics don’t have to stand out as long as the audio and the dancing are still fun.

Audio:

When I first started playing DDR, my first thought was that there was going to be more popular songs that have been released in the past two to three years.  What DDR does have for the music is Japanese pop, a lot of remixes and, of course, techno.  There is only one song that stands out, in my opinion, and that is “Brick House” by The Commodores.  Other than that, Big Idea has a few songs on the DDR soundtrack.  There’s also a song by Elvis.  None of the songs I danced to would be found in a club in my local town.  That is kind of a good thing to step away from what is expected from a dancing game.  But, to have nothing change from the last version in terms of what your song selection is, that’s a major disappointment on any standards.

Controls:

To have full control over the game, you’ll need the dance pad.  You can use the controller, but what’s the fun with that?  Before I jump right into my indepth experience with the dance pad, I’ll have to let those people who hate dancing know how to use the controller to play.  The D-pad is used to press in the direction of the arrows displayed on the screen.  You can also use the X, A, Y, and B Buttons to mimic a direction you will need to respond to.  X is your second left direction, A is the down direction, Y is the up direction and B is the right direction.  If you are looking at the controller, it’s easy to see what direction they will represent when you need to press two directions at one time.

Now, onto the most interesting part of the DDR series -- the dance pad.  The dance pad is quite innovative, in my own opinion, as it’s easy to transport, roll up, lay out in the middle of the room, and quite responsive when you tap the direction.  A few disappointments about the pad are that it isn’t quite big enough, so you will likely find yourself stepping off the mat when trying to hit the direction you want.  So, missing the pad is a let down, even though what may be contributing to that mistake is my coordination may not be the greatest.  After a few sessions, the dance pad becomes much easier than the controller and if you are that good, you will become quite an entertainer for any party.

Replay:

The replay value is located in two areas, the Xbox Live factor and the fun factor of just playing the game with friends.  With DDR being open for online matches, I thought I’d take my skills online.  After waiting for approximately twenty minutes searching for a match, I realized no one was ever going to play against the dance master within myself.  I then reverted to searching for download content.  I was crossing my fingers that no price tags were going to be tagged along with the music but a $5 price tag is included with the four songs in their Song Pack #7.  You can still download the old Song Packs from the original DDR but, yeah, those too will cost you some George Washingtons.  Now after waiting a week, I jumped back online with hopes that I could search and find a game.  Guess what happened this time, still a virtual ghost land and my dancing feet were bummed out with no competition.

Summary:

After some time spent on DDR Ultramix 2, I came to the conclusion that if I was a dance freak, I would keep playing this non-stop.  But, sadly I am not and the song list didn’t draw me into the game as a spectator either.  Only a few songs could capture my attention for more than one hour of my attention per session.  With about fifteen sessions with a few others, the game lives up to the hype but, still needs to work on attaining more current popular songs on the radio and past favorites.  Another addition that is needed is the Xbox’s ability to support custom soundtracks.  Custom Soundtracks would add tons of depth to this game and actually would have separated Ultramix 2 from feeling more like an expansion pack.