Oh my. I can't believe I let my cousin convince me to get this game. I can't believe I danced like an idiot in front of the family. I can't believe my aunt recorded the whole thing and threatened to Facebook it.

And I can't believe I had some fun in the whole process.

Tik Tok: One of the normal dances in the game.

So last Monday, my cousin practically begged me to get this game for Thanksgiving to play. I caved in and asked my aunt for an early Christmas present in exchange for a shoutout in the Thanksgiving prayer (a story for another time). She brought it over, and decided to "experiment."

The game is very basic in terms of accessibility, as noted right as the menu screen came up. There was three modes: One where you straight up dance to a choice song, a competition round with modes of few twist,a workout mode tournament mode with teams, shop to buy extra songs, and options to turn on/off lyrics, dance moves, instructions, ect. It was easy to notice that this was aimed for the "casual" market. These modes are few and have little options, such as in the "twist" games, there is no way to manually pick a song, which is disappointing. The few modes they have hinder ling-term replayability, as there is lesser variety then there potentially could have been.

Now to the most important part: gameplay. Dancing is surprisingly fun. The dance moves are enough to keep one moving and sweating, but still basic enough to not confuse anyone with an IQ higher then Forrest Gump's. The game senses what the controller's movements are in timing to the song and the screen character and gives points on each move depending on how responsive you were. There's perfect, good, ok, and X, worth about 100, 50, 20, and 0 respectively (varying depending on the song.) There is also a ranking on a 5-star scale; each star requires 2000 points each to gain, which is gained through dancing (duh), streak, and super-moves which are all-or-nothing 300 point or so moves indicated by a yellow dance move icon. This is a very organized and basic way to keep track of points, which is very handy when trying to get the highest score possible.

The problems with the dancing comes in two forms: the shallowness and the response. The score system is as I stated organized, but also too simplistic. There isn't really enough to keep players coming back to attempt to beat a previous high score, and focuses too much on the "have fun" aspect. I'm not saying fun is bad, but rewards would be much appreciated such as unlockable SOMETHING. Also, some of the dance moves will not respond to the Wii gesture, even if the player mirrors the dancer precisely the way it is done on screen, which can be really frusterating if it meant the difference between a four and five star ranking (this has happened to me on more then one occasion). But overall, it is accurate enough to avoid total frustration, and I read it is a vast improvement over the first one, so I won't complain too much.

I got the power: to DANCE!

Song selection is really refreshing compared to other music-type games I have played in the past. Games such as Wii Music, Guitar Hero, and Dance Dance Revolution only have a few gems that I keep coming back to. This game has an excellent variety of actually good songs that will please all non-metal heads (I doubt that's the targeted group anyway). They have pop songs like "Tik-Tok" by the ever-so-classy Ke$ha, electric songs like "Satisfaction" by The Biz, retro songs by Elvis, Cher, and the Bangles, and general fun songs like the Monster Mash. The good variety and good amount can keep dance song lovers coming back for more and more. This is even imporved - to a moderate degree - with the downloadable song content. The game comes with Katy Perry's "Firework" song for free download, but all subsequent songs will cost 300 Wii points, or $3. It also cost something possibly more valuable: Wii block space. Each song will take about 200 blocks of memory on your Wii, and to download the first song, I had to delete Majora's Mask, which ws incredibly painful. So unless you have an SD card to keep all your songs and/or Virtual Console games, there will either need to be sacrifices or keep the limited, but still pretty good, song list that is available on the disk.

Multiplayer is where the game shines, as all of the flaws can be ignored by the sheer laughter of everyone in the room. Multiple people dancing causes a lesser competitive edge over games such as Super Smash or Call of Duty because the winner is the best dancer, which may not be something to brag about unless you are backup for Lady Gaga. The sheer idiocracty about how peole look playing this game shows the main fear gamers had about the Wii: looking stupid playing games. Because in honesty, you do. There are the weirdest dance moves that will make one ridiculed. The only part saving it is the fact that everyone else is doing the same stupid dancing, which is what makes the atmosphere light-hearted and full of laughter and fun. It would probably be even more fun when drunk, but I am 16 in America, so I can only speculate. Multiple dancers makes for lots of fun and silliness, but be cautious of space, as people can easily hit others in the face, or fat people, as the dancing will tire them out really fast.

This is me playing this game, and thus, giving up my manhood. (Not really)

So at the end of a long night, and sitting down to evaluate this game, I say this is pretty fun. Will I be choosing Just Dance 3 over Skyward Sword? No. Will I be playing this in a couple years like Mario Kart? No. Does this game have glaring glaws? Yes. Is this game fun? Yes. Would I buy this game again? Sure.

Good:

( ) Good song list

( ) Wacky, fun dance moves

( ) Multiplayer's idiocracy

Bad:

(-) Few and simplistic modes

(-) Hassle for extra songs

(-) Lacking long-term replay

Final Score: 7.2

Recommend to: People with typical family/friends who like silliness, or people who enjoy looking like an idiot.