All she wants to do is dance

[owlmoose]

Once each quarter, we have a student worker meeting, and afterwards we usually try to do something fun. So today we went out to an arcade for a couple of hours. First was air hockey; I lost the one game I played pretty badly (although not as badly as I expected to), but the others were mostly evenly matched so it was really fun to watch them. Then we played a little skee ball and a few other things, and after that we made our way to the Dance Dance Revolution machine.

I had never played DDR before. I've long been curious about it, both because I hear it's fun and I've wondered if it might be a good way to get some exercise. But I never had a chance to play until today.

I loved it. I had a blast.

And, somewhat surprisingly, I'm actually sort of good at it. Not, like, amazing or anything (the one student who plays a lot could probably dance circles around me), but compared to the other two people who hadn't played before, I did really well. Definitely better than I would have expected for a game that's so physical.

So now I'm thinking much more seriously about picking it up for myself. I know there are some DDR players out there; any suggestions about which version is the best? (Of the PS2 games; we don't have an XBox. Although if anyone has tried the Wii version I'd be curious to hear that as well.) Also wondering whether the default dance pad is good enough, or whether it's worth shelling out for a higher-end one. Any and all thoughts on the subject are welcome.

Comments

[parron.livejournal.com]

DDRMAX2.

DDR EXTREME 2 has imo better songs (BUTTERFLY UPSWING MIX. SPEED OVER BEETHOVEN. CARTOON HEROES), but MAX2 has an easier system, i.e, you don't have to play a "story" mode, you can just go right into the songs (which are by and large very good, although my three favorites aren't on it *waves up*).

There is no "default" pad, but the cheap one - it's like 20 bucks - works fine. I've had mine for two years? And it's definitely a little weird now, but not broken by any means. It lasts long enough, and is cheap enough that it doesn't feel like... you know, a waste. The only problem is that since it's plastic, it slides around on some floors. >__> So you're in the middle of a song and you suddenly start missing ALL the right arrows, and then you realize it's because the mat has moved two inches. But~ it's really fine, the plastic cheap one.

[auronlu.livejournal.com]

DDR is wonderful. It helped me get in shape for my surgery. (As you've probably seen me babble.)

I'm thinking about getting a better pad than the default, since as you probably noticed it scrunches up a bit and may scoot around. However, I've certainly gotten a lot of enjoyment out of it as is, and so far it hasn't shown signs of wear. I'd suggest trying it with that and seeing if it's good enough. (Note that I think taping it to the carpet would solve all problems.)

OH. There's one reason to get a higher-end one, possibly. The default pad that came with mine only had the following keys:
D-pad (directional)
X, O
select, start

so it was missing triangle, square, and trigger buttons. Making it impossible to use for anything except mini-games in the FF series.

It's my ambition to get a dance pad that lets me play regular video games. I will say the chocobo mini-games in FFX were ten jillion times more interesting and vivid when it felt like I was weaving through the course!

[rustehroll.livejournal.com]

I prefer the hard dance pads for two reasons -- it's hard to wear shoes on the soft ones (and we put a piece of plywood down under ours) because your shoes kind of "pick up" the plastic, and going shoeless ends up with the balls of your feet developing bone spurs like my friend did. (she was using it as her primary form of exercise)

That said, she lost a TON of weight, and had the nicest butt ever. Shell out the extra for the better, hard dance pad, or retrofit yours with a piece of plexi on the top, and a piece of plywood on the bottom. Your feet will thank you.