We Dance Review

We Dance is the latest addition to the “We” series of games by Nordic Games. Boasting 40 years of music to choose from plus unique controls but does We dance have what it takes to come on top or will its fame end with the local school talent show.

Gameplay
We dance is unique in the sense that it not only uses motion controls but the tradition dance mat as well, therefore trying to combine the old school, arcade style DDR with this current generations technology. To make it easier on the many couch potato gamers, there are 3 types of gameplay to choose from and you can pretty much go through them to find what suits you. You are given the choice to only perform the hand movements with the Wii mote, only use your legs with the dance mat or act all hardcore and use the both of them together.

The general gameplay screen, time to boogy!

This brings an interesting amount of choice to a game which just requires you to shake a leg, the addition of the gameplay types attend to players of all abilities and once you get better at using one option, it’s time to move up to the next level giving a sense of progression and achievement at the same time.

The game contains a vast amount of music to choose from with forty tracks spanning four decades including the option to get more through the Dance Shop. It’s a good selection even though there are some I’m sure I’ve never heard of, there’s bound to be someone out there who would care about them. Each track is marked with a star rating showing its difficulty e.g. MC Hammer – Can’t touch this has a five star rating, the highest you can possibly have.

Perfect scores! Yeah!!!

Right so when it comes to the actual dancing, you are presented with an on screen avatar that guides you through the moves including a box on the left corner of the screen that represents the dance mat. You are also given the option to view the actual gestures during the dance or to go through it on your own.

Performing the moves seem completely inaccurate with the Wii mote as the move you’re meant to perform comes across the screen telling you to raise your hands, you do it and it gives you no points, however when you just waggle the Wii mote in time with the move, you get full marks! I find this to be one of the biggest faults with the gameplay itself since it kills the idea of dancing correctly in the 1st place. It also damages the multiplayer making the competitiveness almost nonexistent due to the easy way to gain a high score without actually trying.

Dance school is a great way to lean the steps to your favourite tracks. You can pick to either learn the steps or hand portion and go through it while the beat is playing. Using the feet side as an example, it’s colour coded so you know which step to take next e.g. Blue is for the right foot and pink is for the left. However even through Dance school, learning the moves is extremely difficult as the game requires you to perform to precision, making it really difficult for beginners or even non dancers in general to get up to speed. Dance shop enables you to buy more tracks to bogey down too and Dance TV lets you watch the videos for your tracks.

Dance Shop offers some sort of productivity but Dance TV seems more like an add-on rather than an enhancement but regardless both modes don’t seem to add anything to the game so I believe they will rarely be used.

Graphics 
The game makes use of a bright palette to work the player into a dancing mood. No matter what menu you’re on, you will be faced with bright colours that are changing constantly giving off a sharp look.

The models for the avatars are pretty jagged and their animations while dancing come out a little awkward at times. It makes it look as if they’re trying to cripple themselves instead of dance, making things look quite disturbing.

Dancing to Jai Ho! Very smooth choreography.

Design 
The ingame menus show off a clean and bright look. This in a way complements the game’s overall feeling of being bold and energetic.

It’s always good to have a visual presence on screen to aid you through the actual dance moves instead of helplessly flapping your arms about however in this case the avatar’s body is completely blacked out, apart from the clothes so when it comes to some moves where the arms cross it makes it difficult to make sense of what is actually happening.

The combination of controls brought new ideas however having the dance mat at the bottom left makes it difficult to see what the avatar at the top is doing making the use of both controls extremely difficult. Music video’s running in the background compliment the mood and helps to better grasp the dance moves.

Final Verdict 
We dance is a game that has big ideas but poorly executed. The Dance School is its biggest highlight teaching those who are highly un-coordinated, the moves to their favourite tracks. The graphics aren’t that great, even for the Wii and the controls are not tuned so well however overall We Dance is a fun title, it just happens to be carrying many flaws.

Gameplay = 5.5/10
Graphics = 6.2/10
Design = 6.5/10

Final We Know Gamers score = 6/10

Had a chance to play the game? Tell us what you thought of it in the comments section below!
We Dance Review

Reviewed by Liban Ali
on Oct 1 2011

Rating: 6/10