I've downloaded Helix, and I found the game quite enjoyable. If you like Dance Dance Revolution or Samba de Amigo, you will probably like Helix at least enough to justify the $10 entry fee.
The soundtrack is 100% dance techno from the dozen or so songs I've unlocked so far, but this music suits the purpose of the game. As somebody who used to loathe music like this before I got into DDR, they all make me want to move and none of them grate on the eardrums.
There are at least a dozen different gestures in the game, making for some nice variety in the gameplay compared to other rhythm games. The motion recognition isn't 100%, even with calibration, because in the heat of the moment, the wiimote may not be in the same starting position, may twist in your grip, etc. This doesn't detract from the game to me, but it might for you if you always tried for perfection in DDR. Buttons on a dance pad are much more distinct than gestures in the air, so incorrect gestures might be misinterpreted as correct and vice versa.
One challenge I find a little frustrating is the method for reading ahead. Arrows or coloured dots don't slide across the screen for you to read ahead like in other rhythm games. The robot will do a move and you have to mimic it a moment later, when the robot will be performing the next gesture. This is easy enough to follow on easy mode with long pauses, but starts to get challenging on fast parts on medium difficulty, because because the robot will be going more than one step ahead of you. Perhaps this is just something that takes practice, but right now these fast sequences are devolving into wild flailing. The game marks about half my flailing correct anyway (see above paragraph), but all the fun flies out the window.
Two player support is a little weak. You're meant to each take a single wiimote and do one arm of the robot. I don't see why a full-featured two player mode couldn't be implemented by adding a second scrolling bar, health meter and score counter. However, I'm used to trading off the DDR pad, and two people can quickly swap profiles and take turns at the game, without even needing to trade wiimotes if they each have a pair (it supports all four wii remotes, you just can't play with more than two at once). Helix is enough of an aerobic workout that the break can be very welcome.
I'm enjoying my purchase and I intend to replace Wii Boxing with it in my video game exercise regime.
"The worst part about these reviews is they are [subjective]--and their scores often depend on how drunk you got the media at a Street Fighter event." — Mona Hamilton, Capcom Senior VP of Marketing
*Image indefinitely borrowed from BrainBoxLtd without his consent.
