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Dance Paradise
Okay... there are way too many dance titles
out for Kinect! How can a gamer keep up, especially one who likes to
dance? Thankfully you have your good ones, your bad ones and your
average ones which will make your selection a hell of a lot easier. With
that said, Dance Paradise borders on the average dance game and
boasts cutesy graphics, the ability to use your XBox 360 avatars and a
learning curve that goes from super easy to super difficult. If you have
issues with your coordination, than I suggest you look elsewhere for
your dancing fun!
Features
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Get ready for the
Ultimate Dance Party!
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Official Partner
-Universal Music the #1 music house!
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40 big dance hits &
original video clips!
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Become the
Queen/King of the dance floor by reproducing some of the grooviest
moves.
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Have your score
listed via the live Scoreboard.
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Earn rewards to
unlock new outfits and accessories for your avatar.
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Solo or multiplayer
modes (off & online).
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Downloadable songs.
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Choreography by
professional dancers.
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7 modes of play!
Dance Paradise is a
strange game as it incorporates an almost Guitar Hero type interface to
your "dancing". As opposed to notes sliding down the four coloured
(green, yellow blue & red) lines, these notes are actually dance moves
and the goal is simple. Mimic the dance moves. Unfortunately these dance
moves are quite simplistic at the best of times which doesn't get your
body moving that much. However all of a sudden, the difficulty rises
sharply and mimicking those faceless dancers does become a chore.
In terms of gameplay,
there are 7 modes of play that includes an interesting career mode in
Dance Paradise which allows you to make your way up the ranks of the
dancing world. Then you have "Free Play", my favourite which does allow
you to go a little crazy as opposed to the Guitar Hero style of gaming.
Even though it may not
be the most challenging game on the Kinect at the moment, the developers
have ensured that the accuracy is up there with Kinect Sports and
Kinectimals but unfortunately the dancing of this game needs to be
refined a little better.
The game does support
multiplayer that include a versus mode, co-operative mode and an attack
mode (remember Guitar Hero versus?). Attack mode is actually kind of fun
which allows you to use power-ups to sabotage your opponent via
nefarious dance manoeuvres. For example, I can "freeze" my opponent
which does makes things quite difficult for them. All in all,
multiplayer is considerably better than single-player.
Graphically, the title
is a little lacking, especially that polished professional look. It
doesn't look bad but it looks more Wii than 360. The music videos that
play in the background are decent enough but the star of Dance Paradise
are the plethora of bopping musical tracks, 40 to be precise. These
tracks include some modern classics from Lady Gaga and a variety of
other awesome singers, bands and rockers. Not bad for a relative B-grade
game.
In the end, Dance
Paradise is a weird game as the dancing is quite limited and easy at the
start but suddenly skyrockets to a whole new level. If you don't have
rhythm or the ability to shake your booty, Dance Paradise will be a
frustrating experience but for the seasoned dancers, this is one game
that may just grow on you! |
