Dance Dance Revolution Extreme with Free CD

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• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• ASIN: B0004I1W3C
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #250,401 in Toys & Games (See Top 100 in Toys & Games)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)

Customer Reviews

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128 of 131 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another DDR winner from Konami!, September 25, 2004

By 

Lee Mellott "Skin Care For Wrinkles" (Frederick, Maryland) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Dance Dance Revolution Extreme with Free CD (Toy)

Dance Dance Revolution Extreme is the newest DDR Playstation game from Konami. And it does not disappoint.
DDR is a game you play by moving your feet on a controller dance pad and following directional arrows to different songs on your TV screen. You can select different levels from beginner on up according to your abiility.

One of the reasons DDR is so much fun is the variety of options it offers. For example, the background graphics change. You may be dancing with a Captain Jack video with one song or animated visuals with another. You can opt to dance with different characters or dance alone. You can compete with another player, play with one pad or two, choose your songs or have them chosen for you etc. So many options you will never get bored!

Another key element of DDR fun are the unlockables. DDR Extreme starts you off with 44 songs. There are 11 new Konami original songs like "Firefly" and "Jet World" , 5 songs from Karoke Revolution including "Believe", and ""Ladies Night", 11 Konami originals from previous games including "Higher", "So In Love" and "Wild Rush" and 17 licensed songs with "Diving", "Planet Rock" and "Never Ending Story" among them. As you pass certain levels and complete a certain number of songs you UNLOCK new songs. Unlockable songs include "Tsugaru", "Drop the Bomb" "Funk Boogie" and many more.

With DDR Extreme you also "unlock" characters to dance with. You start with two named Blues and Rhythm and eventually unlock others including Baby-lon, Spike, Janet and more. There are also different game modes including endless, oni, nonstop and mission.

DDR Extreme also features a workout mode. You can input your weight and workout goal. You may want to workout for a certain length of time or to burn a certain number of calories. Choose your level of ability and get moving! DDR Extreme will show you approximately how many calories you burned and compare your current session to previous sessions.

One new feature of DDR Extreme is the party mode. These are mini-games. You will need an eyetoy camera (not included with the DDR Extreme game). With the camera your image is projected on the TV and you respond to the activity shown on the screen. You might be wiping bubbles off the screen that hide the game arrrows or feeding animals. Other mini-games include "Coconut Panic" where you shake the trees and catch coconuts, "Magical Ball" bounce the ball on the screen with your hands and more. About 7 of these cute games.

I purchased my Playstation 2 just to play DDR. I thought it would be super exercise and keep my interest and it certainly does. I wear a mini-pedometer and rack up thousands of steps daily moving to the music! It's so much fun you forget you are exercising. Great for coordination too. I highly recommend DDR Extreme and the other DDR games for all ages!


Lee Mellott

34 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great start for first time Dance Dance Revolutionaries, November 29, 2004

By 

Chris Rachael Oseland (Louisville, KY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Dance Dance Revolution Extreme with Free CD (Toy)

Like most people, I discovered Dance Dance Revolution in the arcade. I was a little dubious about the home game, worrying that the plastic dance mats wouldn't provide the full arcade experience.

To my surprise, the home game is even better than in the arcade. You don't have to worry about the volume being too low, the dance mat being broken, or the line of angry people behind you waiting thier turn to play. All this is in your control.

That said, I think Dance Dance Revolution Extreme is the best of the home game series thus far. First, it provides the "Beginner" mode, first introduced in Dance Dance Revolution 2. This makes a world of difference for first time players. Without the Beginner mode, first time players are left with only one or two songs to choose from and a LOT of time in "training" mode. With it, they can start with almost any song, master it, then work their way up in difficulty.

Also like DDR 2, this version has some music videos mixed in with the traditional animae dancers against a silly background. The good part is getting to see the Captain Jack music video, which is quirky fun. The bad part is all the songs with music videos are cut short from their original versions. The most extreme example is a Pet Shop Boys song cut down to one minute! They just stop singing in mid sentence, which is so weird I've stopped playing that song. I don't know if this is because of licensing costs or lack of space on the DVD. Either way, I'd rather have fewer videos at full length than several cut short.

The new innovation on Dance Dance Revolution Extreme is the inclusion of Eye Toy software. There are several mini-games where you use your upper body. They're fun a few times, but are mostly an introduction to the Eye Toy's upcoming potential. The one worth paying for is the "Hands and Feet" game. You follow the normal DDR arrows with your feet while also reaching up to hit the hand symbols with your arms. This makes for a whole new level of cooridation and concentration. I've said for awhie I wanted to see DDR and Eye Toy Groove combined. This is the first generation of that software, and I fully expect it to get a lot better with the next DDR game.

A less innovative, but very popular feature is the "Watch Me Dance" mode. Instead of animated dancers, the Eye Toy camera shows YOU dancing as the arrows scroll by. I found it distracting, but when playing at a party, people like it. If they added a "capture this moment" feature (ala Eye Toy Groove) it would be even better.

There are reviewers out there who dislike the music. These must be very musically conservative individuals, because I think the music appeals to a broad audience. I love the Captain Jack 50's-esque cover as much as the Konami techno songs. If you're so counterculture you buy all your Uniform Rebel(TM) clothes at Hot Topic, perhaps you'll oppose the idea of some cute, perky songs written outside Japan. For the rest of us, this is a great, solid mix of music. Many of the songs are absolutely addictive.

The "workout" mode leaves more than a little to be desired. Good idea, relatively poor execution. I didn't dock a star because simply PLAYING dance dance revolution is such a good workout, who cares about the monitoring? Get a pedometer if you want to count your steps or just use the clock to see how many minutes you've put into an aerobic workout. Believe me, you'll be sweating by the end.

The DDR Extreme arcade version has many different songs from the home version. I'll admit I'm a little puzzled that the two versions have the same name, since they share so little music in common. On the other hand, I know the arcade version will provide me more songs to try when I've maxed out the home game, and that's enough to keep me sated until the next DDR release.

For those people who are such DDR addicts they get all the Japanese mixes before the American release, this is apparently a disapointment. It does make me wish I could try the versions they rave about. However, for people who have never seen the Japanese versions, I recommend this highly. It's a ton of fun.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nothing Beats DDR!, April 24, 2005

By 

#Infinity - See all my reviews

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Dance Dance Revolution Extreme with Free CD (Toy)

Part I - Dance Dance Revolution Extreme

An ultra fun video game that gives a good workout just seems too cool to be true, but there is a game that has those attributes: DDR. This great game changed my life and turned me from a lazy guy playing computer all day to becoming a true athlete, as working out is so much fun after playing DDR!

Although DDR Extreme was a big disappointment for a Dance Dance Revolution installment for DDR experts, it's easily the best one for beginners with its familiar songs, easy game engine, and Beginner mode (which debuted on DDRMAX2).

Dance Dance Revolution Extreme and all the other DDR games out there are 2-D games (Except for the dancers in the background) with one major point: Dancing with your feet. You have a dance mat (or stage) where you tap your feet on the arrows planted on the mat at the same time as the matching arrow on the screen is inside the outlined arrow. There are five (or six) ratings you can get for your accuracy: Marvelous (Not on a regular game), Perfect, Great, Good (Which should really be Average), Almost, and Boo. You want to get the first ratings I listed, and not an Almost or Boo, or else your dance gauge (Which kind of shows your health) will start to slip until it runs out and you lose a song. At the end of the song, you can receive an overall grade, depending on your overall accuracy, of either an E (Which you get for failing a song), a D (Which you get for surviving, but receiving a poor score), a C, a B, an A, a double A, or a triple A (Which you get for receiving a perfect score). Even if this sounds cheesy at first, doing this to the exciting music in the background is actually extremely fun.

Four different difficulty levels exist on DDR Extreme (and a fifth one for a few songs): Beginner, Light, Standard, and Heavy (the fifth one is called Challenge/Oni). Prior to DDRMAX2, there was no Beginner mode, and only a few songs (like "Peace Out" and "Cutie Chaser Morning Mix") were easy enough to be beaten by beginners. I therefore only recommend this or DDRMAX2 if you're a beginner.

When you first get the game, you start with 44 songs, and you can unlock 26 more songs for a grand total of 70 songs. To unlock the hidden songs, you must clear songs about 5 to 10 times. Once you do that, a new song is unlocked. The first song you can unlock is called Scorching Moon, and the last one you unlock is called The Legend of Max. You can also unlock new dancers for dancing in the background in songs without real music videos, but I never use characters (Having a character is optional).

If you play a regular game, you can, instead of simply select a song and dance; choose to play two alternate modes: Nonstop and Challenging mode. In Nonstop mode, you can play four songs in a row without stopping. Sadly, there's only a limited selection of lists of songs you can select from, but thankfully, you can choose from "Players Best", which includes the top 4 songs that you've selected the most. This mode was best in DDR Konamix because you could select which songs to be on a list. Challenging mode is hardly worth the trouble. You have four lives, and each time you get a Good or worse, you lose a life. This mode is very frustrating, and only those who can get AA's all the time will find it an attracting way to play.

The Party Mode, which is new for DDR Extreme, is a futuristic-style way to play video games, as you can dance with both hands and feet while seeing yourself dance, although you need the camera for PS2 to do so. Being able to play with both your hands and feet while watching yourself is genius, and must be extremely fun to do. The Hands and Feet Mode is likely the highlight of the Party Mode; the other games are too simple and boring (feeding an animal the right food, etc.).

Along the way, you can unlock two new modes: Mission Mode and Endless mode. In Mission Mode, you dance to different songs with an unusual task to win. Be careful about the visual tricks that are used in many of the songs in Mission Mode. In Endless Mode, you keep dancing until you fail with a randomly chosen character. The songs that you dance to are randomly selected. The problem with it is that you're forced to have a character dance in the background and might end up with one you can't stand.

The Workout Mode in the game allows you to keep track of your fitness and allows you to figure out what you should be doing to keep yourself healthy. If it's on, you'll see how healthy of a workout you got after you finish dancing to a song. Your score will be better if you play fast songs like Drop Out or either of the Paranoia remixes, so play those songs if you want to get fit quickly.

The training mode is a mode where you can't unlock anything, but you can practice the different songs in the game without being stopped by failing and without the thrilling backgrounds. Unfortunately, in DDR Extreme, you can't slow down a song if you need to be able to study something fast and confusing. Even DDR Konamix had this feature.

Finally, I'll take you to the information mode, which gives info about all of the different songs in the game. It tells you if the song you're studying is from a previous DDR game or not, what you should try to do while dancing to the song, or what kind of music it is. According to it, plenty of songs from Dance Dance Revolution Konamix have been brought back, but only three songs have returned from DDRMAX2.


But why is this 2-D game that has the same goal over and over again so great? Well, there are certainly several reasons why:

1. DDR Extreme has a total of 70 different types of songs to choose from. You can find the type of music that's best for you. From a typical energetic dance song (B4U), to a song that's easy to recognize (YMCA, Waiting For Tonight, Like A Virgin), to a jazzy song (On The Jazz, Funk Boogie), to a Japanese pop song (Firefly, Pink Rose), to a supercharged song full of energy (Drop Out, I Feel...) to a song that combines a whole bunch of styles together (JaneJana, Do Me HIGEO Mix, Make It Better), to a theme song from a movie (Never Ending Story, Enter The Dragon) to even a classic song from previous generations of DDR (.59, Drop The Bomb), there's destined to be a song that you'll enjoy.

2. The replay value to this game is incredible, since you can build up your mad skills from beginner to expert, trying to successfully receive all Perfects on songs. You won't want to stop!

3. If you like video games, but you're out of shape, this is a game that can help knock off your weight and keep you fit. I've lost six pounds playing this game since November to December. I've suddenly started to love working out ever since I started playing this game. Seriously, your life will be a lot better after you're fit.

Then again, there are some downsides to this game, but minor downsides:

1. The host of this game gets on your nerves easily. Fortunately, you can shut him off when you're dancing, but not when it's most annoying: When you fail a song. His quote, "W-w-what?" is super annoying, as when he speaks in Japanese.

2. It's hard to find a dance mat that works well. Even the Ignition 2.0 Pad broke down twice within about a couple of weeks for me. It might've been because I was tapping too hard on the arrows, but it still might break down quickly.

3. DDR Extreme for US isn't based on the arcade version, and very few DDR Extreme (arcade) songs are included on the home version ("321Stars", "A", "JaneJana", etc.). Why no "Bag", "1998", "Speed Over Beethoven", and "Paranoia Eternal" (which should've been on DDRMAX2) instead of "Paranoia Survivor"? Not even the licensed songs from the arcade like "We Will Rock You" are on. Konami should release a DDR Konamix 2, a game that should include all of those missed songs from DDR Extreme (arcade) that used DDR Extreme's (arcade) game engine and should keep the DDR experts into DDR.

Anyway, here's the song list included in DDR Extreme, as well as grades for them and comments about what they sound like:

(Songs with * are ones that must be unlocked)

1. .59: A (Exciting)
2. *321Stars: B (This one is easy to hate, but I can deal with it)
3. *A: A (Seems to be pretty darn popular, probably because of its challenge and energy)
4. A Stupid Barber: A- (Strange but interesting euro pop)
5. *Absolute: A (A nice blast of typical DJ Taka sound)
6. *B4U: A- (Awesome techno song about DDR)
7. *B4U (B4 Za Beat Mix): A (A more energetic version of B4U)
8. Bad Routine: C+ (So-so house music)
9. Believe: D (Don't like licensed songs much)
10. Bizarre Love Triangle: B+ (But this is an exception)
11. *Can't Stop Falling In Love (Speed Mix): A (Feel the strength of this song!)
12. Diving: B+ (Deep euro trance music)
13. Do Me (H.I.G.E.O. Mix): B (Groovy house music)
14. Don't Clock Me: C- (Okay old skool song plagued by bad lyrics)
15. Drop Out: A++ (Awesome! Feel the energy and danger of this song!)
16. *Drop Out (Remix): A (I personally liked the original better, but this is still good)
17. *Drop The Bomb: A- (Pretty exciting techno song)
18. Ecstasy: A+ (Excellent and exciting euro trance)
19. *Ecstasy (Midnight Blue Mix): A- (Less exciting than original)
20. Firefly: A+++ (Very exciting buildup, cute singers, and great pop/techno/rock music sound! Excellent!)
21. *Frozen Ray (For Extreme): B (Gentle sound, although harsh steps)
22. *Funk Boogie: C+ (So-so jazz/funk music with very simple steps)
23. Go West: A- (A memorable cover of a Village People song)... Read more ›