I have to admit, I wasn’t too thrilled with the genre of “Just Dance 3.” I never liked “Guitar Hero,” and “Dance Dance Revolution” wasn’t my cup of tea either.
“Where are the sword-wielding warriors of destiny?” I thought. “Where are the grand strategies bringing me closer to crushing the world under my sandaled foot?” I wondered.
But “Just Dance 3” is more fun than I had expected — so much fun that I didn’t mind dancing my pants off without having been bought dinner.
Using the Wii’s remote, you follow a mirror image of your suitably silly-looking dancing counterpart, mimicking its movements, specifically its right hand that shimmers on screen to your corresponding color. Depending on your rhythm and how accurately your moves resemble that of the dancer on screen, you earn points. From a simple “X” (the poorest rating) to a “Perfect,” you compete among those you are playing against for the highest score.
The scoring was lenient, and at times the harder difficulty songs seemed to have a larger margin of error. This was at times rather curse-inducing, since I seemed to be doing better at the harder difficulty songs than I was at the easier ones. Maybe there was so much flailing going on the game thought I may have been doing it well enough.
“Just Dance 3” also has a “Sweat” mode intended for, you guessed it, sweating! Depending on how much you want to get into it, the dancing can be quite a workout. Most of the songs are pretty high-tempo and will certainly get your heart rate going if you let them. I got pretty sweaty myself, dancing with my friends for a couple of hours.
The music fluctuates from terrible to excellent, but rest assured that all of it is danceable. Even if you don’t know what you’re doing, when you’re struck by the complexity of some of the dance moves, as long as you keep rhythm you’ll be fine.
One of the very small gripes that I have with this game is the number of songs available. With around 40 songs, and only four to unlock through gameplay, it was difficult to wish to continue after playing for a few hours. It seemed that all I unlocked were different modes of play that I may or may not get around to playing. There are another 14 to download off of the Internet at 250 Wii points each. So, essentially, every new song you want to have is $2.50 each, but it would have been nice to have more songs available in the base game.
While you can play this game alone, the multiplayer is where it’s at. I laughed so much while my friends and I made fools of ourselves that I forgot how much of a fool I was making of myself whilst gyrating haphazardly in the middle of the living room floor. Strangely, I felt more self-conscious playing this game alone than I did playing it with others.
The cheese factor in this game runs high, and it’s better for it. The dance choreography is out of control, making for hilarious mimicry from the players.
A great deal of space may be needed for more than two players. I was bumping into whomever I was dancing with more than once, but this didn’t cause too much disruption.
This is a great game for the Wii and a good choice for anybody looking for a laugh and a good workout to boot. If there were more songs to choose from, it’d be truly excellent. But very good @@we really have to leave this very in@@isn’t much to sneeze at either.
Overall grade: B