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> Results: Pump it Up: Exceed
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Pump it Up: Exceed takes the dance game genre and turns it at a 45 degree angle. No, the dance mat isn't diamond shape, it's that the arrow buttons don't reside in the familiar North, South, East, and West pattern. Pump it Up's pad (and there's really no point at all in buying the version without the pad because regular dance controllers simply won't work with it) puts it's arrows on the corners ﾖ and adds one to the middle.
The result will trip up DDR fans for a while, but is a boon to new players because it feels more natural to hit the corners, especially when it comes to the combos. Hitting the North and South buttons in DDR means angling the body awkwardly, in Pump it Up it's possible to hit all combos while facing forward and the middle button increases the combinations ﾖ and challenge level ﾖ exponentially. This is a hard game. The easiest levels are unforgiving, the pace is frantic, and it's a bit less user friendly than Dance Dance. Nobody ever tells you that you're cool, or the ultimate dancer, and while nobody boos, they might as well be booing for how hectic and frustrating the higher difficulty levels can be. But one newbie's (or 34 year old game reviewer's) frustration can be a boon to an expert DDR player. Pump it Up offers what DDR freaks want most ﾖ something different, and most of all, something harder. Not only harder, playing Pump it Up feels more like dancing. The combinations are clever, fast paced, and require a different, more creative style than typical dance games (which usually feel more like aerobics) but despite the bizarre cover model, using your hands is not required. (Well, maybe it is required if you plan to buy a second pad and use both in single player ﾖ seriously, this is an option!)  The Playstation 2 version offers 101 songs, the Xbox only 97 (more can be downloaded via Xbox Live, but the game isn't playable on the net on either system). The music is less varied than the multiple DDR titles, or even the competing In The Groove dance game, but it's more beat oriented. More lively. Tracks come from Sugarhill Gang and Elvis (representing the old school) and The Crystal Method and other Electronica, J-Pop, Latino and Hip Hop music from generic or at least, less well known bands. The manual claims most of these are original tracks, I can't argue with that, but I will say they all sound very good and work well with the game and lend it a jubilant energetic vibe. Pump it Up handles the graphics well too. Like DDR you get a selection of real videos that play behind the relentlessly scrolling angled arrows, combos, and center button moves, but you also get some bizarre and very cool animations that pop up. It's never boring to look at, which makes it a better party game experience. If you're not goofy enough to watch, the other players and spectators can watch the screen. This doesn't really matter in single player of course, because you'll be too busy trying to keep up. Where the game falls as flat as new players just starting out is in the menus. In arcade mode, a few missed steps cause the game to end. This happens without warning and might put DDR fans off a bit (well, it did here with my friends). Players have to choose the song and then go all the way back and choose another if the first choice proves too hard. Worse, the very first song that comes up isn't an easy one. What's up with that? Also, and this is a minor point, the pad actually does let you use up, down, left, and right as buttons, but these are only used in the menus. This means players have to take a very different stance when scrolling around and looking for the next song to play. The included Dance pad is decent as bundled dance pads go, but experienced players used to their foam or metal pads are going to wish this thing had a zipper on it. Other than that, the pad works fine on a reasonably hard surface.  Pump it Up features all the familiar modes but is missing one important one. There's Arcade mode, which isn't very forgiving. Players can try as many songs as they like provided they don't miss too many steps and score an A or S on each song (D and F fail). Home Mode is basically the same thing as Arcade mode, but missing steps won't send you crashing ignominiously to the menu. Sudden Death mode is for crazy pretzel people. One mistake and the song ends. No mercy, no appeal. There's a tutorial, which does a pretty good job getting you into the game and finally we have Survival mode (which unlocks after you beat 20 songs in Home Mode) and lets you dance a marathon of tunes until you've missed enough steps to deplete your life bar. Missing is the Workout mode and calorie counter, which is a pity, but does fit the hardcore difficulty level and dance focus of the game. Pump it Up is flawed, but on the right track. If anything it just needs some tweaking to make it easier and a little friendlier to players new to the concept of hitting arrows in time with a beat. It's not for the weak, the flabby, and could be very dangerous to the uncoordinated, the aged, and the easily humiliated, but we suspect veteran DDR players will adore the new wrinkles and twists, moves and grooves, and quickly buy another pad so they can play musical twister like the weird hip-hop wizard on the cover of the game. In the meantime, we'll be over here nursing out sore muscles with hot pads and Bengay. 
The music isn't really offensive but the backgrounds are a bit suggestive ﾖ nothing your kid hasn't seen in a TV commercial however, and we whole-heartedly embrace and encourage dance gaming for every family. It's real exercise folks and it teaches co-ordination. You can't beat that. The main consideration for kids is the difficulty ﾖ this one is hard. But if you've got youngsters who laugh at the hardest difficulty in DDR, go ahead and pump up the jams with Pump it Up: Exceed.
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