About.com Rating



DanceMasters is pretty much the exact opposite of Dance Central, Kinect's other dance game at launch. One is easy and accessible. The other slaps you around with a super steep learning curve. One is full of recognizable U.S. pop music. The other consists of niche J-Pop and techno tracks. One is made for anyone and everyone. The other is seemingly made for a pretty select group of die-hard Dance Dance Revolution fanatics.

DamceMasters is the latter in all of these examples. It can be fun, but is well outside the realm of "mainstream appeal" that most Kinect launch games were shooting for.

Game Details

• Kinect Required
• Publisher: Konami
• Developer: Konami
• ESRB Rating: “E10" for Everyone 10+
• Genre: Dancing
• Pros: Decent music; can be fun once you learn how to play; nice graphics
• Cons: Steep learning curve; opposite of accessible; motion tracking issues

DanceMasters is essentially the next generation of Dance Dance Revolution. Instead of stepping on a dance pad, however, Kinect tracks your whole body. Everything else, though, is DDR through and through and in particular, the J-Pop, fast paced techno song list. If you like DDR, and you like DDR's music, you'll more than likely enjoy DanceMasters. It is pretty much that simple. For anyone else, there is that other dance game out there for Kinect you should try.

Gameplay

The gameplay is like this. There are a handful of on-screen cues that tell you what to do.

Steps require you to step your feet in time with the beat. Poses are silhouettes you have to try and match. Streams are gold arrows you have to try and trace with your hands. And ripples are circular targets that you have to touch in time with the beat.

There are a few problems. First, there is no practice mode to learn the choreography of a song. You have to learn on the fly and fail a lot. Secondly, the fact you can fail songs at all is no fun. Third, the game moves way too crazy freaking fast. It doesn't ease you into things like Dance Central. It throws you to the wolves on the first song and it is difficult to even know what the heck is going on.

The biggest problem, though, is that it isn't very accurate. It seems to be selective in how it sees your movements and the scoring system. From one second to the next it can go from giving you "perfect" ratings for flailing your arms and not really following the dance steps, to the next second when you fail even though you think you're doing it right. It is inconsistent and frustrating.

You do learn how to play eventually, but it is a steep learning curve that will try your patience. It takes effort to get the most out of DanceMasters. Effort that most gamers, understandably, won't want to put in. It kind of beats you down without ever really rewarding you and building you back up. Kind of not fun.

Graphics & Sound

The presentation in DanceMasters is quite good overall. The in-game graphics are quite nice, and the character models for the dancers are nicely detailed and look good. In an interesting touch, the game puts a model of you dancing on-stage and it is actually placed in between the backup dancers and the main dancer, which gives it a feeling of depth that other Kinect games don't quite match. It doesn't have anything to do with gameplay, but it is an interesting visual. Not so good is the fact that the model (it is just video of what Kinect sees you doing) of you they put on-stage is jaggy, ugly, and not very detailed.

The menu (boy, I love talking about Kinect menus) is also kind of interesting. You slide menu items left or right (and be warned, the menu actually moves the opposite direction of how you slide, must be a Japanese thing) and then you raise your right arm to select things, or raise your left arm to exit and go back in menus. It works well all in all.

There isn't much to say about the sound. The music sounds good, and the announcers aren't annoying.

Bottom Line

If you are looking for a fun, accessible, easy to play Kinect game, DanceMasters isn't it. It can be a fun game for the right person - someone that loves Dance Dance Revolution and that style of music - but for anyone else it just takes too much effort to squeeze any enjoyment out of it. On top of a somewhat overwhelming gameplay design, the motion detection also doesn't seem quite up to the task, which causes you to sometimes fail even when you think you're getting the hang of it. This mix of technical shortcomings, odd gameplay design, and lack of modes all conspire to make DanceMasters hard to recommend.



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