Dance Factory

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Feet-on with the last dance game you'll ever need

Each song's difficulty depends on its number of beats. Buta song's tempo isn't always directly tied to its beat, so there's often no real way totell how hard it'll be until you play it. At the "normal" difficulty level, a fast (but apparently beat-deficient) techno song we tried just softballed an easy progression of steps at us. Meanwhile, a slower hair-metal tune had us jumping like idiots to keep up with rapid-fire clusters of arrows. The only complete non-surprise was a spoken-word track, which cranked out a lazy series of occasional beats.

The graphics that run in the background during each dance aren't anything spectacular, unless you find random throbbing shapes and patterns amazing. But if you get sick of the generic effects, the game can read your CDs to generate unique virtual creatures. These are blocky, simple-looking monsters made up of unconnected polygons that don't do much aside from wobble around rhythmically in the background. You can, however, deck out your stunted homunculus with hats and other accessories, which you'll be able to unlock with points earned through dancing.

Mikel Reparaz
Mikel Reparaz
After graduating from college in 2000 with a BA in journalism, I worked for five years as a copy editor, page designer and videogame-review columnist at a couple of mid-sized newspapers you've never heard of. My column eventually got me a freelancing gig with GMR magazine, which folded a few months later. I was hired on full-time by GamesRadar in late 2005, and have since been paid actual money to write silly articles about lovable blobs.