Dance Dance Revolution: Hottest Party Bundle for Wii

Features

If you have not played this type of rhythm game before, it's a simple but fun idea in which you try to dance along to a song with a streaming set of arrows indicating when and where to put your feet in tune with the music. Hottest Party for the Wii is much the same as other Dance Dance Revolution games from the past. There are animated dancers and flashing backgrounds on screen too, which can be a distraction at first but you'll soon learn to keep your focus on the arrow cues.

The hardware is the big thing about the bundle, for obvious reasons. It's a foldable, plastic mat that is about 36 by 33 inches with four arrows, as well as A and B buttons. You can use the arrows and button in the in-game menus, which is of limited use; fortunately, there's also a blank space in the middle where you can stand between dances to avoid having the game go haywire in the menus.

The music selection is a decidedly mixed bag, although this is to be expected when you're targeting such a wide audience. You'll find licensed songs from four decades here, remixed and with varying difficulties to work in the game. Expect disco music; Aerosmith and Guns'N'Roses are found elsewhere. Honestly, most people will find the bulk of the songs to be so-so at best, but at least the really serious duds are few and far between.

Controls

The foot controls of Dance Dance Revolution: Hottest Party Bundle for Wii are pretty much identical to the arcade versions, as mentioned earlier. However, being the Wii you'd think Nintendo had thought of a way to incorporate the Wii control and nunchuck, and you'd be right -- to an extent.

Unless you actively disable it, each song will include "hand swing" prompts. Unfortunately, that only means you have to give the control and nunchuck a quick shake once in a while, as trying to actually do something with your arms to look anything like dancing will inevitably earn you boos and lost points for having "missed your cue". Thus, all the potential for greatness that would have set the Wii version of DDR apart and above the others is squandered on what feels more like a cheap gimmick than anything else.

Multiplayer

A major part of the Wii's appeal in the ease of bringing in the whole family to play with and against each other. Not surprisingly, the developers built on this with up to four players going head to head in occasionally furious dance-offs. Part of the fun is tossing obstacles into your co-players dance routines and disrupting their rhythm, which is almost but not quite as satisfying as pelting friends with obstacles in Mario Kart.

Quality

With a plastic pad made for people jumping around on it for hours and hours, quality is a natural concern with the Dance Dance Revolution: Hottest Party bundle for Wii. Will the equipment start malfunctioning or will the plastic sheet start deteriorating? As of this writing, the pad has held up to about an hour daily (April through July 2008) of adult use with shoes without showing the slightest sign of wear, suggesting these things are built to last.

Is Dance Dance Revolution: Hottest Party Bundle for Wii Worth It?

So what's the bottom line? Is it worth $70 to bounce around instead of sitting snug and comfortable in your favorite gaming chair? Absolutely -- it works great as a workout tool (track calories and allows you to set goals), as a party game, or just something to get the blood flowing after a multi-hour session with a regular game.