Dance Central 2 (Xbox 360)

Developer: Harmonix

Publisher: Microsoft

Release: October 25, 2011

Price: $49.99



Dance Central 2 is the sequel to what I believed to be the best game available for the Kinect. The first Dance Central brought innovation and a genuine fun-factor to the Xbox 360. Not only that, but it showed that dancing games aren’t just about stepping on directional arrows on a floor mat any more.

Dance Central 2 has an incredible list of 44 songs ranging from current hip-hop, old school hip-hop, techno, and pop from an assortment of decades. Plus, you can import all of the first Dance Central songs for 400 MS Points if you have the game disc.

In Dance Central 2, you’ll be introduced to more characters and dance crews than you remember from the first title, each with their own unique personalities. By performing songs effectively, you can earn the rights to represent a crew and build your way up to the boss levels.



Game Play:

Boasting seven levels of difficulty to the original’s five, Harmonix greatly improved Break It Down to be much more intuitive. No longer will you have to go through a whole routine just to figure out a specific move and utilizing the game’s new voice commands makes it easier to slow or speed up a piece of choreography until perfected.

Surprisingly fun is the new Crew Challenge, or the game’s version of a career mode. Tasked with gaining the respect of the four different crews in the game, you must earn stars by successfully performing songs through solo or co-op play. Earning the required amount unlocks a challenge song from each crew and successfully completing that with four stars unlocks a new crew to impress. At the very end of Challenge your endurance, memorization skills and coordination are put to the test with a 5-song setlist that you must pass in one go.

You can even have your moves recorded during practice sessions to watch over later. This is actually quite a useful addition when you want to observe your moves to pinpoint where you may be going wrong. Professional dancer or not, Dance Central 2 is certainly equipped to turn you into one.

Grab a friend, a towel and a bottle of water because you’re going to need all three to take advantage of Dance Central 2’s multiplayer feature. Not only can two people now simultaneously perform a song together, but the game’s Dance Battle mode has also been completely revamped so that true head-to-head competition is finally possible. Now you compete against a friend side-by-side, and the addition of Free-4-All, where extra points are given to the dancer who can successfully complete a single move before the other, makes multiplayer more involved and competitive.

Another simple addition is the ability to jump in at will. If you are dancing in any song and a second player wants to jump in, they need only step in front of the Kinect and wave their right hand. You’ll join the song immediately, but you are going to do so on the same difficulty setting, so be ready!

There’s even a new fitness counter mode to help you exercise. Dance Central 2 is a dance learning experience, a competitive experience, and even an exercise experience. The way you prefer to play the game is up to you, but it is always fun. Also every song and DLC from Dance Central 1 can be imported over, and is upgraded to work with these new features. There will be roughly 100 songs available on launch. That’s a lot of dancing. And a lot of calorie burning.

Final Thoughts:

Whether you’re looking for a well-designed Kinect game, a fun dancing experience that doubles as a party favor, or an exercise game, Dance Central 2’s fantastic choreography and gameplay will suit your needs.

Dance Central was a must-have Kinect launch game because it made the best use of the technology and will teach you a move or two. Dance Central 2 trumps its predecessor with improved multiplayer, thorough tutorials, and an all-new campaign.

Pros:

Revamped Break It Down mode

Jump-in / Jump-out cooperative play

Voice controls

Simultaneous co-op and competitive modes

Great song selection

More helpful training mode

Even better choreography than the original

Cons:

• Paying for DLC

Final Score: 10/10