Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Go to your local arcade and the game with the crowd around it will be Dance Dance Revolution. The arcade game, which was wildly popular in Japan first and is now becoming so in the U.S., is up to its 8th version in the arcades, and even more than that on Japanese consoles. Meanwhile, this is only the fourth DDR game released in the U.S. Fortunately, it's the best so far. There are quite a few songs NOT taken from the DDR arcade games that most people will recognize, such as Days Go By from the Mitsubishi commercials, Heaven, Get Down Tonight, etc. Some may be disappointed that the difficulty of these new songs is not great, even on the hardest levels. But they're fun and sound great, and one of them (A Little Bit of Ecstacy) has a tricky tempo change. There are a lot of old favorites here that arcade players will recognize: Burning Heat (remake of a song from an old Nintendo version of Gradius), Maxx Unlimited (one of the hardest songs ever), Kakumei (based on the classical Chopin piece "Revolutionary Etude"), Let's Groove, Twilight Zone (the jock-jam anthem), So Deep (so hard), and a couple of Captain Jack songs. New to this mix is the Nonstop Mode, which lets you play predetermined or random sets of songs with no pauses in between. Also new is actual videos behind the arrows in several songs, and the dancing characters and Endless Mode (dance 'til you lose) are back from previous mixes. Some have complained about songs repeated from other U.S. versions. Yes, it's annoying. I'm dealing with it. Hopefully next time, we'll get all new songs. If you want to take this game seriously, I recommend you research and buy a metal dance pad from eBay or Red Octane. Soft pads (available at stores) will work for the less, er, intense players. One more note, I have been using this game as my workout regime for the last year. Benefits I've noticed so far have included increased stamina and lung capacity and stronger calf muscles. I've played almost every day since August 2002 and I'm not even close to tired or bored of it. In fact I own only three games for my PlayStation 2: this, another DDR game, and a third game I've played only once. Unlimited replay value, fitness benefits and great fun: you can't lose. Buy it now.