This week I compared Just Dance and Dance Central. Unfortunately, I don’t have the technology required to physically play the games so I watched a few reviews to see what some of the main features were that people either liked or disliked. My two favorite reviews talked a little bit about all aspects of the games. For Just Dance, this review taught me that there is a wide variety of songs, the backgrounds don’t match the songs, and you are only being tracked by your right hand. This video explained how the songs were mostly pop but there were also songs from different time frames that didn’t really fit in. The backgrounds didn’t match the songs and some were quite strange. This may only bother people who are not playing the game because the people playing the game are probably too focused on hitting the dance moves to pay attention to what’s going on in the background. Also, this review talked about the Wii version of Just Dance and critiqued it because you are only being tracked by your right hand. The dancing can be cheated this way because it isn’t tracking the full body movements.
For Dance Central, the video was about PS4 which tracked the whole body movements so you couldn’t cheat your way through the dance moves like in Just Dance. Dance Central also, in its newest version, has a story plot which requires the players to go back in time. This idea or a storyline is smart because it allows for a wider variety of music from all different times without the songs seeming out of place in a game that is dominated by pop music. Also in Dance Central, the backgrounds make more sense to the songs where the background is a club or even a street rather than an abstract background or a background that doesn’t make sense in Just Dance.
Some small differences between these games are noticeable. In Just Dance, the dance ques com across the bottom of the screen wherein Dance Central, the dance ques come on the right side of the screen almost like flashcards with titles to them. Just Dance ques slide across the bottom and don’t have titles. This is something to consider when debating between which game to play. Also, Just Dance has the song lyrics present on the screen where Dance Central does not. This also may be more of a feature to satisfy the people not playing because the people playing are probably too focused on dancing to read the lyrics as well. To add on to the differences, Just Dance has a cell phone app that allows players to use their cell phones as controllers. However, there can’t be a mix of types of controllers, if one person uses a cell phone, everyone has to. This could also solve the problem of not having enough controller for the number of people who want to play as long as everyone has a cell phone.
Overall, I think that these two games are pretty equal in my eyes. The small differences all depend on the person who wants to play the game. If someone is interested in purchasing one of these games I would definitely recommend doing some research beforehand to see which game would be best for them. Below are the review videos that I watched and my own Knovio review.
Just Dance Review:
Dance Central Review:
In class, we decided to test out both games to see which game was preferred. Overall, almost everyone enjoyed Just Dance more. They liked the songs and the dance moves more. We did 2 songs from each game to really get the feel of it. However, we were just mimicking a Youtube video, we were not actually playing the game. This could have swayed the decision of which game was the favorite. In the reviews, Just Dance was liked less because it is a Wii game and the dances were only registered by one hand. By playing Dance Central where you couldn’t cheat the system and really had to dance, I wonder if this would’ve changed any minds on which game was the favorite. Here are some pictures from the in-class dance session.
My Knovio Review:
Superhealth42 