Dance Dance Revolution: Mario Mix (GameCube) Preview

As soon as I walked into the Soho venue, I walked right past Zelda, round the corner and spotted the special dance mat on the floor. Raising my eyes to the screen above it, I was suddenly dazzled by a bright pastel coloured Mario smiling at me. Momentarily overwhelmed, and somewhat scared, by such happiness pouring forth from the monitor, I moved over to Pok

When I originally agreed to cover this game for Cubed

That put me off for most of the day and the only reason I came back towards the end of the day is because it was just that, the end of the day and I had had my fill of all the other games on show. But I was so glad to come back and try out DDR one more time and this time round it was much more fun. I was drawn to the game after playing on Zelda for an hour, so I did come to it with lower expectations than previously in the morning. Plus there was a little bit of alcohol pumping through my veins by this point, so wandering over to the dance mat was not quite as difficult as before. Also, I had Eddz from Club Skill and tempo accompanying me, which helped immensely.

After seeing one of the testers playing earlier, it definitely looked like cranking up the difficulty level was the way to go. None of this 'Easy' stuff, time to bump up to 'Hard' and see how quickly I could move my feet left, right, up, down and in various combinations required of me. Just like Donkey Konga, you must stop the oncoming notes just as they go through the appropriate target at the top of the screen. Standing in the central circle on the mat most songs will start with a simple right step or forward tap at the correct time. But as the speed of the songs and difficulty levels are turned up, suddenly you will be faced with several different steps in quick succession. If you are not careful you could definitely get your legs in a tangle! Just because you may be adept with your hands on the bongos does not mean you are just as co-ordinated with you feet.