Dance Dance Revolution Universe (Xbox 360)

GameSpot editors' review

• CNET editors' rating: 3.5 stars Very good
  Detailed editors' rating
  Overall score: 7.3 (3.5 stars)

• Reviewed by:
  Jeff Gerstmann
• Reviewed on: 02/28/2007
• Released on: 02/27/2007
• Originally published on GameSpot: Dance Dance Revolution Universe (Xbox 360) Review

Dance Dance Revolution is flying its flag over yet another game platform with DDR Universe, the first installment for the Xbox 360. The game comes with a decent dance mat and offers many of the same modes found in the DDR Ultramix games, which were released on the previous Xbox. With handy tutorial stuff for beginners and more than 70 songs to choose from, Universe is accessible to players of all skill levels.

Like most of the domestically released DDR games, Konami has placed a handful of North American and European licensed tracks into Universe. The highlights of the more popular tracks include a Chemical Brothers remix of Kylie Minogue's "Slow," "Twist" by Goldfrapp, the remix of Steppenwolf's "Magic Carpet Ride" that was made popular by the movie Go, and more tracks from artists like Ozomatli, Chris Brown, Phats & Small, Depeche Mode, and the Sugar Hill Gang. All that is matched with more typical DDR tunes, including speedy Eurodance tracks "www.Blonde Girl" by Jenny Rom and remixes of music from Castlevania and Gyruss. It's a healthy mix of music that doesn't stray too far from what the series is known for, though it's 2007 now, and the genres that have fueled this series for almost a decade now aren't what they used to be. It might be time for a more drastic change in musical direction for this series, though the fast-paced happy hardcore Europop stuff that the series has been leaning on all along is at least fun to hop around to.

When you first launch the game, you're dropped into a stripped-down version of the game that's meant for beginners. This version of the menu only lets you do easy stuff and is focused on getting new players up to speed. From there, you can transfer over to the "master mode" menu, which is the full-featured game with all of the modes and options you'd expect to find in a DDR game. Party mode is the local multiplayer mode, where up to four players can play in various cooperative and competitive modes. Workout mode tracks the number of calories you're burning by playing the game. Challenge mode offers up very specific tasks that really change the way you think about the game. Some challenges may demand that you not get a combo higher than 10 steps, forcing you to purposely miss one out of every 11 steps. Some ask you to step only on eighth-note steps, or only on two arrows at a time, and so on. Edit mode lets you create your own steps. The manual implies that you can upload and download edited step data via Xbox Live, but if that's in there, it's buried extremely deep, because the game doesn't make any mention of these features either in the edit mode or in the Xbox Live menus. Over Xbox Live, you can play various multiplayer games against other players. But since you can't really see them dancing with you or anything, it's not particularly compelling to play online. It does, however, provide online leaderboards.

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