Nerdy comparison of DDR and DC
All weekend, since I got my Kinect, thoughts have been percolating in my brain comparing Dance Central (DC) and the previous king of dance video games, Dance Dance Revolution (DDR), so I wanted to commit them to (digital) paper.
The most obvious difference is that of course the graphics and music in DC are going to beat the snot out of DDR's. However, it's so much of a newer game that that's not really a fair comparison, and for that reason I'm barely even going to mention it, and instead focus on what counts more -- gameplay. "Now wait," I hear you saying, "Aren't there elements where advances in technology are also going to affect the gameplay?" Yes, wiseasses. But, as I'll explain, not always to its benefit.
Honestly, I was never a DDR fan. I found it kind of tedious and annoying. Just moving my feet was never that immersive an experience for me. I personally found it kind of tedious, let's face it, at higher levels it was more memorization of routines than actually following what the screen was saying. To me, the simple act of moving my feet was not really interesting enough to be worth all the work of all that memorization. Plus you had to buy that extra dance pad... I didn't see the point in bothering.
For me, DC fixes the tedium by incorporating whole body movement. Yes, there's still plenty memorization, but since the movement is so much more interesting, it's far more worth it to me to do it enough times to learn it.
Ok, so what's the downside? Being scored on your entire body movement is a double-edged sword. What you gain in gameplay you lose in personal creativity. Gone are the days of the crazy awesome Korean kids at the arcades who could DDR incorporating flips and spins and twirls, still managing to land their feet and hands and god-knows-what-else on the right pads at the right time. In DC, if your leg or arm is just slightly out of position, your score slips. Welcome to your new robot army.
To their credit, they do try to combat this a little by giving you a "freestyle" mode in the middle of each song, usually during the "bridge" or "breakdown" of the song, where you can do your own thing. But I get the feeling DC's still not going to wind up fostering the same kind of subculture dance following that DDR had due to its overall rigid scoring structure.
It's a fun party game, the next logical evolution of dance games, and I don't regret the purchase at all. I just hope it isn't going to strangle all life out of future dance games now and forever.
The most obvious difference is that of course the graphics and music in DC are going to beat the snot out of DDR's. However, it's so much of a newer game that that's not really a fair comparison, and for that reason I'm barely even going to mention it, and instead focus on what counts more -- gameplay. "Now wait," I hear you saying, "Aren't there elements where advances in technology are also going to affect the gameplay?" Yes, wiseasses. But, as I'll explain, not always to its benefit.
Honestly, I was never a DDR fan. I found it kind of tedious and annoying. Just moving my feet was never that immersive an experience for me. I personally found it kind of tedious, let's face it, at higher levels it was more memorization of routines than actually following what the screen was saying. To me, the simple act of moving my feet was not really interesting enough to be worth all the work of all that memorization. Plus you had to buy that extra dance pad... I didn't see the point in bothering.
For me, DC fixes the tedium by incorporating whole body movement. Yes, there's still plenty memorization, but since the movement is so much more interesting, it's far more worth it to me to do it enough times to learn it.
Ok, so what's the downside? Being scored on your entire body movement is a double-edged sword. What you gain in gameplay you lose in personal creativity. Gone are the days of the crazy awesome Korean kids at the arcades who could DDR incorporating flips and spins and twirls, still managing to land their feet and hands and god-knows-what-else on the right pads at the right time. In DC, if your leg or arm is just slightly out of position, your score slips. Welcome to your new robot army.
To their credit, they do try to combat this a little by giving you a "freestyle" mode in the middle of each song, usually during the "bridge" or "breakdown" of the song, where you can do your own thing. But I get the feeling DC's still not going to wind up fostering the same kind of subculture dance following that DDR had due to its overall rigid scoring structure.
It's a fun party game, the next logical evolution of dance games, and I don't regret the purchase at all. I just hope it isn't going to strangle all life out of future dance games now and forever.