Of all the Kinect games that were announced by Microsoft, the only one that caught our attention as actually being “fun” was Harmonix’s Dance Central. The game, a fresh take on the growing dance genre, seemed to take the refinement of Rock Band and mix it with the sounds and motions of a night club.
The game idea by itself was fine, and nothing extremely original, but what may have sold me on the product was how silly it made everyone look as they were using it. And, that made me giddy with glee.
Having played “Plastic Guitar Music Hero”, I’ve come to the conclusion that we all look silly as we stoically stand there and rock out to Soundgarden while punching candy-colored erasers on a piece of polypropylene. With that said, it’s always a guilty pleasure to see others make fools of themselves in games like these, while prepping my own ego to hop on board next.
I’m never the first in line, but I make my position count in the end.
During our time at the Harmonix booth, we observed the absolute silliness that took place as one journalist after another played Dance Central. The magic didn’t occur as they tried to match the moves that were showing on screen, but as they improvised along the way. Yes, it resulted in less-than-perfect scoring, but was wildly fun to watch take place.
The game, from what we experienced, didn’t seem to recreate the player’s movements with the character on the screen as much as it played out the pre-recorded moves and tracked the movements. While this was fine, it made the game feel like it was more of a dance video rather than a true recreation of our movements. That may be a fault of Kinect’s known lag issues, as trying to capture and recreate those dance moves with precision may be a heavy undertaking for the device.
The visuals were crisp and clean, but the characters seemed a little too “serious” on the screen, resulting in a slightly stiff appearance. I do hope that the characters show a little more variation in their movements, or at least some more realistic “bounces” or motions. The disadvantage of using polygonal models (as opposed to Just Dance‘s silhouettes) is that they tend to be too precise in their motions. The emotion isn’t there yet, even though the kickin’ music and concept is.
The video clips shown after the dance sessions are great for some self ego-drowning, even though everyone else already told you that your dancing wasn’t any good.
Dance party games attract a different crowd than music rhythm games, but there is some overlap. Both are party-focused and appeal to wider audiences, with Dance Central having more shift towards females (at least as far we could tell by their marketing and branding at the booth). I can see this being the game that follows sessions of Rock Band or Super Street Fighter IV in my home, as a good shirt-unbuttoning slightly-inebriated party game.
My concern falls on the quality of the other Kinect launch games. If this is the only one worth picking up, the presumably-expensive price of the Kinect device may actually prevent people from buying this game until more worthwhile experiences are released. This is a considerable gamble by Harmonix and MTV.
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