Dance Central Kinect Game Review

So far Kinect has been less than impressive with a string of prommissing launch titles, crippled by Kinect's poor motion sensing technology. Dance Central is the first family-friendly Kinect party game from the people at Harmonix. This game will require you to do more than just tap you're feet in sync, you will use you're whole body when playing this game and it will take allot out of you at times. You will need a happy attitude to play this game with friends or family because the game is only fun when you play it in a group. The game is far from perfect, but if this is what you are looking for then you will likely have allot of enjoyment here.

Dance Central uses Kinect's motion sensing technology to read player's body movements, movements which should be in sync with the on-screen prompts for you're dance to be successful. These "flash cards" each represent one move, and that move can range from a simple shuffle step to an advanced series of upper body motions. There are more than 30 songs in the game providing a great deal of variety for every taste. There are new hits (Cascada - Evacuate The Dance Floor) and old classics (Jungle Boogie) so there is something here to get everyone up on the dance floor. Each track has three different difficulty settings which must be unlocked in order.

Each level of difficulty builds on the dance moves of the previous routine, the hardest mode is truly challenging. They are not just hard, they feel too hard and times. The game frustrated me allot when i was not playing on one of the easy modes, and when you do play on the easy mode, it's just far too easy. The difficulty was the main reason i did not enjoy this game.

There are a few helpful modes in Dance Central for new dancers to learn the basics, but it still doesn't prepare you for the toughest modes the game has to offer. Break It Down is the only way to learn some of these routines, as it cycles through each move one at a time. Players can also slow down the moves until they feel comfortable which is nice. This mode is completed with an announcer who shouts out the moves in order to help players learn which is great.

Break it Down is essential if you want to make it to the hard dances, but what is extremely disappointing is the fact you have to go through a whole routine, even if you just want to learn one specific move. This was really annoying at times when all i needed was to practise a certain move, and i had to wait until that move came along.

Workout mode is quite a nice addition, but i doubt it will be used too much considering this is a party game. In this mode player's enter their weight and the game keeps track of their calories over the course of the play session. This mode is nice to have, but more than likely people will just ignore it in favour of the dancing.

Kinect did a solid job reading most of the body movements, which was surprising to me considering most other Kinect games have had problems with the motion sensing. There are times when you will pull off a move extremely well and the game just won't register it, when this happens it can be frustrating to see all you're hard work count for nothing, but for the most part the motion sensing technology does a good job here.

The routines are fairly realistic for the average person, although they can be a bit cheesy at times. There are no back flips or handstands in Dance Central, however, there are some challenging moves that will take allot of time, patience, and practice to pull off. They will be fun for people who enjoy dancing, but if dancing is not really something you want to do then this game will just be a frustrating, waste of money.

Dance Central is at it's best with a group of friends or family, it can be allot of fun just laughing at each other attempting to pull off moves which you know are impossible. The game is also a good work out and i found myself sweating heavily after a few hours of playing with friends.

The game has too many problems for me to recommend spending you're money on it though. Poor menu navigation has you frustrated before you even begin dancing and the lip syncing of the on-screen characters can be terrible at times. The biggest disappointment is the overall feature set, you would expect much more from the developers behind the highly successful "Rock Band" franchise. Although there are a few unlocks such as costumes and dance venues, there is no actual career mode to play though and every song is unlocked from the start. There is nothing here to make players come away feeling rewarded. For anyone playing solo this will be an extremely short experience with nothing to achieve really.

Dance battles are fun but it would have been nice to have some tournament modes or some way of competing with you're friends in a big party, there is a lack of content here and really do you need to pay £34:99 to dance ?.

Overall this game really disappointed me. There is no variety or depth here, you are paying allot of money just to dance. The poor menu system, lack of modes, and unlocks really make this game feel like there is nothing to achieve. I never once felt rewarded when playing and the only fun i had was when playing in a large group of friends, and even then i was having more fun laughing at people attempting to pull off the overcomplicated moves, than actually playing the game. If you are looking for a dance game then this will be the best choice on the market but if you are looking for a good Kinect game, this is not it.

Dance Central is just not worth the money 4.5/10