Dance Central

by Microsoft

Product Features

• Immersive dance video game that features and tracks full-body dance moves.
• Completely free from any controller
• Every routine has authentic choreography for beginners and experts alike to master
• A killer soundtrack that spans today's current pop, hip-hop and R&B artists

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B002I0HBOI
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 6.6 x 0.6 inches ; 1.9 ounces
• Media: Video Game
• Release Date: November 4, 2010
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (484 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #965 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
  • #10 in Video Games > Xbox 360 > Rhythm

Product Description

Edition: Game

Amazon.com

Kinect Dance Central Dance Central™, exclusively for “Kinect” for Xbox 360, is the first real dance game experience that is fun, social and for everyone! Brought to you by Harmonix, the developers who created the world-wide blockbuster Rock Band™, Dance Central is the first immersive dance video game that features and tracks full-body dance moves. Completely free from any controller, every routine has authentic choreography for beginners and experts alike to master, alongside a killer soundtrack that spans today's current pop, hip-hop and R&B artists. Take it step-by-step with Break It Down or jump right in and start performing for your family and friends. Either way, you won't just learn dance moves, you'll own the dance floor! Details Ready. Set. Dance. Dance Central will get you warmed up and dancing in no time with “Break it Down” and “Perform It!”. You'll be introduced to some of the over 600 moves in the game, polish your performance, and put it all together to master the routine! Pump Up the Volume. Featuring tracks from hot artists including Lady Gaga, No Doubt, M.I.A., Bell Biv Devoe, and more, you'll master more than 90 dance routines all created by professional choreographers. You may even recognize some of the moves from the song's music videos! Burn Up the Dance Floor – and Calories. Whether you've had your dancing shoes on your entire life or this is your first time hitting the floor, Dance Central will have you dancing like a pro in no time. As you cruise through songs and master moves, you will earn Achievements, unlock new character outfits and venues, and progress through the dance ranks. Dance Central even tracks the calories you burn so you can turn all that fun into your daily workout routine.

Product Description

Dance Central, exclusively for Kinect for Xbox 360, is the first real dance video-game experience that is fun, social and for everyone! Brought to you by Harmonix, the developers who created the world-wide blockbuster Rock Band. Take it step-by-step with Break It Down or jump right in and start performing for your family and friends. Either way, you won't just learn dance moves, you'll own the dance floor!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

276 of 282 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Kinect Shows Off Its Best!, November 5, 2010

By 

D. Bauer "nobod3" (Colorado) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Dance Central (Video Game)

The entire reason that I even wanted to get Kinect was this, for after watching them demo it on stage live at E3 I had full hope in what Kinect can do. I was not disappointed. From start to finish this game is a lot of fun to play and because of downloadable content I have a feeling it will have a long shelf life. Let me see if I can break it down to explain why this game is as amazing as it looks.

Menus: Menus are easily navigated and, because of a certain situation where my mother had friends over for the evening, even they were quickly able to pick up how to go through the menus. Its simple, hold your arm out to the right or left and make a slapping motion to select. This already made the game better. I played Kinect Adventures and I found the menus a little frustrating because you have to hold your hand there while it figures out that's what you want, but with Dance Central its just a quick swipe and you move on. Outside of that, all of the menus are very clear and easily navigated to find what you want, that hardest part of which was selecting songs (going up and down the list).

Gameplay: The no control experience is really shown off at its best here as you actually get a good workout moving your body to the beats. Yes, you will have to get off of the couch and start moving back and forth to the rhythms. Overall the Kinect cameras will do a wonderful job at figuring out your motions and, because the game was designed this way, you won't notice any lag. That's right, you dance in time with the person on screen (literally mirroring their actions) and then the game will take a moment (to which you won't notice because you are dancing) to decide how well you performed the action. In other words, don't worry about lag time because Harmonix has already factored that in perfectly, thus making gameplay smooth and easy to pick up on for even a beginner. Again, my mother's friends were very quick on picking up how to play the game.

Difficulty: This game ranges from anyone can do this easy (the first song) to ridiculously hard yet really cool looking moves (last song). It will give you a workout and it never tends to bore because of the variety of songs as well as dance moves. One thing that I also like about the game is that it forces you to start on easy and work your way up to hard. For a pro dancer (almost no one who will buy this game), that means you are forced to learn the different basic moves for the dance and then they get more complicated. That's right, the difficulty is actually used in this game to teach you the set-up for the next step. It works beautifully at getting you dancing to what was in the music videos.

Visuals: From start to finish this game is amazingly colorful and even the opening movie is rather fun to watch. On the other hand, none of the visuals block or distract the player from what is going on or seeing the next move. In fact, the set-up is so perfect that when you start getting your friends in there to dance along side you, it just feels natural for everyone. Now, I will also give this simple argument for visuals as well, because I am a fan of the hip-hop look the game sports (and thank God for that, Classical dancing would be so boring in a party game). If you don't like the hip-hop sort of streets style, then the visuals might not entertain you as much.

Overall: This game does what it says. It will teach you how to dance the moves from the music videos and it will go fairly smoothly along a learning curve as well. The use of the technology is impressive and it is probably the best party game out there since Guitar Hero became known as a party game (Honestly this one is better, because anyone can just start dancing and having a good time). It works great among all ages and all backgrounds since everything is done with visuals and because of the no-controller feel anyone can easily pick it up and start playing (though don't get me wrong, it is not easy to master).

161 of 167 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Launch Game for the Kinect!, November 5, 2010

By 

Jeremiah (OC, California) - See all my reviews

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Dance Central (Video Game)

I can't dance... no seriously, I can't. That said, I have a lot of friend who love to go to clubs and love dancing. So I figured what the heck, I will give it a try.

This game ROCKS! It is one of the funnest games I have ever played. Let me break it down for you.

PROS:

1) Anyone can play. The game teaches you the dance moves. Then it gives you some practice trys. Then you get to "Perform".

2) The game gives really good feedback. When you miss a move, it shows you which part of your body wasn't moving right by outlining it in red.

3) The tracks are pretty good. There is a lot of music you would hear at clubs today and some that you haven't heard for a while.

4) The sound and visuals are pretty cool. I thought I would get bored listening to track during practice, but you really don't because you are concentrating on what is happening on screen.

5) Watching your friends play this is AWESOME. If they are good dancers (particularly hip-hop) it is a great way for them to perform. If they are not good dancers... well it is fun to watch them pretend.

CONS:

1) You are going to need a lot of space. That should go without saying (this is a dance game).

2) Don't let your friends record you playing this game and then post it on youtube.

If you have a Kinect, you must buy this game.

88 of 91 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tremendous Fun, Even For the Rythmically Challenged, November 16, 2010

By 

Robert H Peterson - See all my reviews

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Dance Central (Video Game)

I'm a short little white guy with virtually zero dancing ability, and up until now dance games have held no interest for me. I have watched my little nieces and nephews scream and jump about playing Just Dance on Wii, but honestly the less than accurate Wii controls and lack of tracking anything but hand movements made me view the whole thing as a huge gimmick. Last week, however, my wife found out about Kinect, and of course demanded I get her one.

This morning I picked one up along with Dance Central, and for a guy who plays "serious" games, I am truly knocked off my feet by the technology and fun. You can't cheat your way through this game, standing still and waving your arms in just the right motions like my little relatives do with the Wii games.The Kinect sensor actually reads your hands, feet, hips, arms, legs...everything. The Kinect even knew if the back of my palm was facing the camera or I was simply holding it sideways.

The sound is fantastic coming through 5.1 with the subwoofer cranked up, and the track listings should please just about everybody with songs and rountines covering hip hop to disco. Plus, the game has promised downloadable tracks, and seeing as how this was developed by Harmonix (Rockband, which has an astounding download library) I think it's safe to assume plenty of music is coming down the pipeline.

And for all of you other guys out there like me who just stand like trees swaying in the wind when you go with your wives/girlfriends dancing, each song has a fantastic tutorial for every single move. The game will walk you thorough each motion, slowing it way down if need be. After a little practice and several runs through Lada Gaga's Poker Face, I actually felt half way competent and actually scored four stars (out of five) on medium difficulty. For the first time in my life I actually felt like I could dance. Sure, I know I must look insane shaking about my media room, but that's besides the point.

Most of all, though, I had an outrageous amount of fun...this coming from a guy who wouldn't be caught dead dacing around to Lady Gaga. So yes, I did in fact close the blinds as I boogied down for an hour...but dang, what a tremendous amount of fun. I can't imagine a better way to show off the technology of Microsoft's new peripheral, you're guaranteed to work up a sweat, and what better way to get a solid workout than by having some honest to goodness fun? Highly recommended.

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