U-Dance Review

Oct.25, 2008 in Board Game, Video Game

The next dance revolution is surprisingly coming from Hasbro—not Nintendo or PlayStation. One of this year’s best-selling Christmas toys is U-Dance, a game that resembles Dance Dance Revolution and its subsequent copycats in a plethora of ways, but surpasses it in one, extremely innovative, creative, and convenient way: there’s no dance pad. Well, given there’s no dance pad, that also means that the game is wireless, so it’s really two ways, but come on, they’re interrelated.

All a dancer has to do to get started is plug the console in to a TV, strap the Motion Tags to his or her feet, and start playing! Like the Wii, one’s body is the equivalent of a button on a controller through motion-sensing technology.

Not only does the lack of a dance pad make set-up and cleanup super easy, its absence means that a dancer can make their moves as big or as little as they want—they don’t have to worry about stepping directly on the arrow; just the beat! A dancer would select a song, a level of play (there are three levels) and follow the footprints on the screen that appear to the beat of the selected song.

Perhaps the biggest complaint about this particular selection on Toy Wishes Magazine’s “Hot Dozen” list is the fact that the game only features 12 songs. This gives a dancer 36 different challenges (each song at each level), but for someone that’s extra skilled at boogying down, for someone that gets bored easily, or for someone with picky taste in music, 36 just may not be enough. Another complaint about the songs is that, because of royalties, not all of them are the original recordings by the artists, but instead covers by studio bands.

Like Dance Dance Revolution, the game allows solo play or an arcade style dance-off between two people. In the case of the latter, the lack of game pads and personal space may be a conflict if two dancers with ample range of motion decide to face off. Ground rules may need to be established beforehand. Unlike Dance Dance Revolution, the U-Dance console is solely for U-Dance; it does not accommodate the play of other games like a PlayStation or Nintendo console does.

U-Dance comes with the game tower, connection cords for your television, and two wireless foot tags (a complete set for one player). Four required “AA” batteries are not included.