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> Results: Pump It Up: Exceed
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The dancing video game genre continues to grow. While some titles attempt to cater to fans of specific musical styles, others try to add value in game modes. In creating Pump It Up Exceed, Andamiro positions it as a videogame with dancing, rather than a dancing videogame. While it remains entertaining, it suffers from a few practical and technical issues that prevent it from exceeding the competition.
As in most dance-pad games, the goal is to follow onscreen instructions in time with music in order to earn a high score. Step too quickly or too slowly, and fewer points are scored. Make enough mistakes and the game round ends before the song is finished. Dance pad veterans will immediately notice that Pump It Up Exceed has a unique dance mat. Rather than four dance buttons (up,down, left, right), this mat has five. Each corner of the dance pad is used, as well as the central square. With five buttons the game is just slightly more difficult. Dancing is also slightly harder since the corners are farther apart than the side and top buttons (used in a normal four-button dance pad). All this makes a unique dance experience in what is becoming a quickly crowded genre. However, it also means that the game can only be played with custom dance pads made specifically for this game. It's a huge disadvantage to fans of dance games, as most invest in high quality third-party dance mats in order to maximize their skill and enjoyment of their games. On the plus side, the supplied dance mat, while flexible and soft, is rather thick and has a very good non-skid undersurface to prevent sliding of the mat during play. The game supports the standard one or two player modes, as well as a super-challenging single player mode using two dance mats.  While most of the initial music available is performed by the same techno-group, Banya, there are a wide variety of styles to choose from. There are plenty of techno-rock songs in addition to recognizable classics like the Can-Can, Vivaldi's Four Seasons, Mozart, and Beethoven. While there's a bit of a "Hooked on Classics" feel, it is entertaining to dance to a wide variety of musical styles rather than be narrowed primarily into a single genre, a common occurrence in other dance games. In the same vein, the song difficulties are closely tied to the song style and speed. Faster songs are significantly more challenging than slower songs when played at the same level of difficulty. While not a game-breaking problem, it would have been nice for the song difficulty levels to be more standardized. While dancing, graphics are displayed on the background of the screen. They neither add nor detract from the game, being mostly adequate to preserve the style of each song performed. Unfortunately, the game programmers were quite fond of using white flashes to add intensity and excitement to the game. This results in enough white flashes that I grew concerned about strobe effects on any player prone to seizures. More judicious use of screen flashes would have been appreciated. One unique aspect of the game is in the dance moves themselves. A professional choreographer was hired to create a dance for each song, and that dance was then overlaid onto the dance pad rather than designing dance moves for the dance pads from scratch. The result is supposed to be dance moves closer to actual dancing with fewer moves just designed to be in time with the beat of the songs. In practice, I noticed the dance moves were a bit more fluid, but at higher difficulties there is very little difference between this game's moves and others in the genre.  Pump It Up Exceed tries hard to be more hip than other dance games and ends up with a mixed bag. It is more challenging due to its unique dance pad, but the need for a non-standard dance pad is also a disadvantage. The variety of music is very welcome, but the graphics and audio feedback during a dance are at times, over the top. Fans of the dance game genre owe it to themselves to find a way to try it as a unique change of pace and its wider variety of musical styles may be interesting to some, but it has enough minor problems that make it less attractive to more casual players or anyone looking for their first entry into the dance game genre. 
During each song there are background videos. Most are abstract and are thus fairly tame, but some of the graphics contain animations slightly suggestive, anime-style women. I was unable to check over all the 101 songs included, but did not find any to be blatantly inappropriate for a younger audience. Some people are more tolerant to suggestive lyrics than suggestive images, and would therefore find this title fine for a 10+ age range. Those more sensitive to song lyrics may find 14+ to be a more appropriate age range. Since the dance pad uses the corners, it can become an issue for kids of a shorter stature as they will need to stretch slightly farther to accommodate simultaneous foot movements. Anyone with a possible history of epilepsy should also be wary of the overuse of strobe-like effects.
This review edited by Dave Long Comments? Chat about it in our forums! Format For Printing | Tell A Friend | Digg | Slashdot | del.icio.us Browse Amazon.com's selection of "Pump It Up" themed games Home > Review Archive > Video Games > Results: Pump It Up: Exceed |
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