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Dance Dance Revolution: Universe 3
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Graphics & Sound:
There are untold versions of Dance Dance Revolution available now across all the platforms. Dance Dance Revolution Universe 3 is the third one available for the Xbox 360.
Graphically, almost everything has gotten a facelift since the previous game. You now no longer have to choose from a default selection of characters. There is a custom avatar creator available. When you first start up the Quest Mode, you'll be prompted to create a new avatar for yourself. You can choose from male or female, and then you can change your face, skin type, hair color, costume, and costume type. Really, when they say face, they mean your hair style. There really isn't much you can change about the face or even the eye color. It would be nice to see something other than blue eyes, but oh well. The male faces do look a little more different from each other than the female faces do. Until you buy something else, you'll have to settle for black hair and pretty basic clothing. Luckily, the hair color and a lot of the clothing options are cheap, so you should be able to buy everything you want for a decent character after beating only a few challenges. There are 8 different hair colors total, and almost 250 outfits per gender available, so if you're looking to buy them all, it is going to take you a while!
As I've said over and over in previous DDR reviews, the real reason that we continue to buy new versions of the game isn't for newer graphics and game modes. The real reason to continue buying the new releases is for the music. This new release has over 60 songs ranging from 70's dance music to current pop culture. 32 of these songs are unlocked from the moment you load the game, so even if you never manage to unlock a new song, you'll still have plenty to play. There are also a large number of songs that you can pay to download. One minor thing, though, out of the 6 songs mentioned on the back of the box, only one, "Dancing Machine," is actually available in the game. So if you're looking for those specifically, don't blame me when you can't find them. There are plenty of other songs to enjoy though, such as "Alice" by Moby, "Watch Us Work It" by Devo, and classic favorites like "Paranoia Rebirth." |
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Gameplay:
Just like the other recent DDR releases, there are quite a few modes that you can choose to play in Dance Dance Revolution Universe 3. You're probably thinking that you'll have to play Quest Mode to unlock songs since that's the way it has been for the last several years. Luckily, they have figured out that not all of us want to jump through hoops trying to clear a song without hitting the down arrow or some other ridiculous idea. You now unlock songs in Game Mode like it used to be years ago, with a minor change. Every so many songs that you play, you will get a bonus stage. This bonus stage will be a new song for you to unlock. You don't just get it for getting there, though. You have to clear the song, on at least Difficult, with the arrows sped up. Just to make it a little harder, you only get 4 steps on your life bar. When you miss the fourth step (a miss meaning anything less than Great), you fail. I think I actually liked unlocking songs in Quest Mode better than only getting 3 missed steps.
Quest Mode is still available in the game. The point of it is to dance your way through Dance Dance City. Each of the people that you meet on the way will have a challenge for you. When you beat their challenge, you will earn money to purchase new clothing and hair colors at the shops. You can edit your avatar at anytime during your Quest. This means that if you want to change clothes in between each challenge, go for it.
If you've got several people wanting to play, I would recommend checking out Party Mode. In it, you can choose from 11 different ways to play against your friends to decide the ultimate dancer. You can have up to four people competing or you can choose to play alone with the computer as your challenger if you want.
The Workout Mode, Xbox Live play, Training Mode, and Edit Mode are all still available, along with a brand spanking new DJ Mode. For those of you wannabe DJs out there, you can use the DJ Mode to try your hand at mixing and creating songs to dance to. |
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Difficulty:
When DDR first came out, there wasn't as much of a selection for difficulty. You only had three levels of difficulty, and not many songs catered to the beginner. In recent years, they have added a Beginner difficulty level to help those who are still trying not to trip over their own feet and now an Oni difficulty level for those people who have to have a 9 or 10 foot insanely difficult song that will give you a heart attack just looking at how fast the arrows are moving to be happy. Between those levels, there are still Basic, Difficult, and Expert levels giving a wide variety of choices for everyone from the newbie to the insane. You simply choose the level that is right for you.
To make sure that you know what you're getting yourself into, you can always check the number of "feet" that a song is before you select it. Since difficulty levels can overlap (there are some 7 feet difficult songs and some 6 feet expert songs), make sure to look at how many feet the song is before playing. The feet range from 1 to 10, 1 being the easiest and 10 being the hardest.
If you don't find the game challenging enough, you can always choose Party mode or online play to compete against players in your own home or around the world. I can promise that no matter how good you are, there is going to be someone somewhere that can wipe the floor with you. |
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Game Mechanics:
For the most part, the mechanics of Dance Dance Revolution Universe 3 are exactly like DDR has always been. You can choose to play with the controller or the dance pad. On the controller, you use the buttons and the D-pad to press up, down, left, or right when the arrow that is scrolling up the screen hits the target arrow at the top of the screen. If you're not lazy and decide to use the dance pad (I personally only use a controller when I can't stand any more since I play better on the pad), you simply press the correct arrow when the arrow scrolling up the screen hits the top. Just make sure not to get your feet caught on each other and you'll be fine.
The one big change I noticed is the music selection screen. Since the American releases of DDR came out, they have been scrolling the music up/down the screen using the left and right arrow keys. This never made much sense to me since it seemed like I should be pressing up and down, but that's just how it was. In this version, they have gone back to the original style of the first arcade/Japanese releases. The song list scrolls left/right in a circle. It does seem much more natural. The only problem I see with it is that the text below the song which tells you the number of feet and the style is much smaller than it was before. I found it slightly hard to read on my 55" TV. I can't imagine trying to read what feet a song is on anything smaller than 25", and I have 20/20 vision. The only other problem I found with the game is that the load times are a bit longer than I was used to on other DDR versions. Granted, it is nice to have time to catch my breath in between songs, but I got bored waiting on it to load sometimes. Given the new Xbox 360 dashboard, I tried the install to hard drive option to see if that would cure the waiting. It did make it a good bit faster, not blazing fast, but easily playable.
I have been playing DDR for nearly ten years now, since almost the beginning of the craze. While this isn't my favorite version to date, it is still a pretty good addition to the series. If you're a DDR fan or just someone looking for a creative way to get some exercise while still playing a videogame, I recommend you go pick up Dance Dance Revolution Universe 3 today. |
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-Cyn, GameVortex Communications AKA Sara Earl |
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