Okay Geek Farm
Xbox Kinect - Dance Paradise Review
Alex Tretrop Apr 18, 2011
Exclusive, Gaming, Geek Culture, Microsoft, Okay Geek game review, Reviews 
Dance Paradise was released to little to no attention, possibly due to how fierce the competition on the Kinect is — with Dance Central already providing most players with a great dance based experience. But what about the underdog? Dance Paradise proves itself to be a competent game, with an excellent choice of music, great use of the Xbox’s Avatars, along with full music videos. But after all that, the gameplay, while an interesting concept, ultimately falls short alongside some fairly bland visuals.
Gameplay
The most noticeably difference between Dance Paradise and other dancing games is the way you interact with the songs. Taking an approach that I can only describe as Guitar Hero: Dance Edition, instead of dancing on one single “plane” as it were, there are four lanes that each have various moves coming towards you. While doing the dances you still need to switch between the lanes. It’s an interesting idea but it presents a problem with some buyers. In addition to needing the recomended six feet of space, you also are required to have a wide enough area to play the game. With the 4 lanes constantly spewing out dance moves, it becomes an annoying challenge to switch between the lanes fast enough, especially with the lack of precision the game seems to have.
But that’s not to say it’s all bad. The song choices in the game have all of the more mainstream songs that Dance Central is missing and also includes the music videos for each of them. While I think they could be more prominent on a screen that is otherwise filled with dancing Avatars, they’re all there for you to dance to.
Speaking of Avatars, Dance Paradise utilizes them in almost every aspect of the game. This can lead to some mixed results. While the avatars are your visual indicator for most of the actions you have to perform, it looks a little bit silly when they’re doing a backflip and, as I mentioned, they take up too much of the screen and seem like a big distraction to what you want to see, which are the music videos.
However, the dancing overall is fairly strong. While some of the actions you perform feel downright wacky, the game feels fun to play and fairly challenging on the higher levels of play. While there isn’t a tutorial, it’s quite simple to jump in when you’re at a party or hanging out with a couple friends.
Visuals/Audio
Dance Paradise won’t win any awards for graphical prowess but there isn’t anything wrong with it either. The music videos look great and the dancing avatars never ceased to bring a smile to my face. The venues themselves lack any distinct visual qualities, which is dissapointing considering Dance Central does it very well by comparison.
As you would probably expect from a music based game, the audio is top notch in all areas. The music sounds great, with the quality of some older tracks being particularly excellent. The actual selection of tracks is just what you’d want out of a dance game: lots of upbeat and popular tracks from the likes of Lady Gaga, Rihanna and MC Hammer to name a few. There’s a healthy amount of songs as well, ensuring you’ll have lots to choose from and enough reasons to come back for more.
Overall
I enjoyed the time I spent with Dance Paradise. The song choices were all very fun to dance to and their use of music videos as well as the audio quality is fantastic. It just has some problems that are more annoying above all. The amount of space needed is a huge turnoff for me and the visuals lack that punch that Dance Central does so effortlessly. Nevertheless, the game’s use of Avatars is an interesting idea and it’s fun to challenge yourself with some of the more challenging songs.
Pro’s
- Excellent selection of music
- Audio is excellent
- Fun to play
Con’s
- …but it requires a huge amount of space
- Visuals are unmemorable
- Gameplay feels unnecessairly complicated
While the songlist ensures you’ll come back a few more times, I can’t help but think that Dance Central is much more fun to play. It’s unfortunate but I think Dance Paradise can get a little too complicated during some songs and the game lacks any real type of visual fidelity, other than the excellent use of official music videos. Give it a try if you want a different kind of music game experience with an excellent selection of music. Otherwise, Dance Central is still the place to be.
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