Dance Dance Revolution
The only game where your heart rate is a high score, and as stupid as it's possible to look without involving other people.
Just The Facts
- Produced by Konami in 1998 as part of their mission to make a peripheral for every musical activity in the world.
- Led to the word "Exergaming," an attempt to make players sound as stupid as they looked.
- The only game to be used in some school gyms, which we still can't decide is awesome or terrible.
EXTRA STAGE for Arcades
Dance Dance Revolution resuscitated ailing arcades by providing something players couldn't - or wouldn't - play at home. Bright flashing light, loud noises and ridiculous dancing replicated the worst bits of a rave by using J-Pop instead of drugs. It triggered the reinvention of arcades as exercise centers, and like every other original idea in history was immediately ripped off (by Pump It Up and In the Groove.)
The Hardest Songs
There is absolutely nothing that someone, somewhere won't master. DDR has been forced to up the difficulty with each release, evolving from "You mean I have to move?" to "Anything that passes this is a robot and must be destroyed."
Paranoia
Most players first exposure to songs difficult beyond the actual "move your body while videogaming" concept. Sounds like a techno DJ choking to death on an air raid siren and plays like he's trying to take you with him.
Bag
The only slow 10-foot song, where the difficulty of speed is replaced with exposure to bagpipe music. The song is widely considered to be impossible, with even expert players wimping out by applying arrow speed multipliers to make things easier.
Max 300
This song doesn't have an artist name below the title, it has an Omega symbol as in "The Destroyer, The Final, The End of Things."Consists entirely of someone hammering the hell out of his drum in a rave and expecting your feet to keep up.
Dance Machine Brainwashed Our Kids!
For a brief but hilarious period DDR was the next big "Threat To Your Children." Which should tell you everything you need to know about those stories, and if it doesn't we hope you don't have children. From "epilepsy-inducing heartattackmotron!" to "Neon-pop pedophile lure," the stories displayed the collective intelligence of a dead Borg. But by far the funniest was a local American paper's breathless report of a teen stealing thousands of dollars to fund his "DDR addiction."
First, if your teen rips off thousands and can only think to spend it on dancing, well done on raising the world's squarest kid. Nancy Reagan'll be sending a medal soon. Second, if your primary criminal fear is theft caused by a brightly colored dancing box then you're too busy being a Smurf to have anything worth stealing.

Though we would be pretty upset if someone stole those pants.
The Best Versions
Dance Dance Immolation
The Burning Man festival finally lives up to its name and makes something that isn't just about smelly hippies, or at least has the chance of removing a few.

DDI armors the player in heavy plating making it impossible to dance in a co-ordinated manner, then punishes them for failing to dance in a co-ordinated manner. With flamethrowers. An actual Disco Inferno but with J-Pop (thereby ten times worse than anything Satan can come up with.)
Monopod Modifier
The single most impressive player ever, and possibly the only DDR dancer who'll make non-players feel worse about themselves. If he had your legs he'd have tap-danced up Everest by now! What are you doing with them?
The Worst Versions
Finger Finger Revolution
It's a wonder the factory machines can make these without breaking down in laughter, but it's a handheld DDR controller.

The fact it comes with a John Travolta finger puppet proves that he either doesn't know about it, or feels he deserves punishment for some secret crime. The fact he's currently filming Wild Hogs 2 indicates the latter.
Tattoo
The following image is posting without comment, dignity, or self-respect.

Groove Radar
It's just the scoring mechanism in later versions of DDR, but if they're going to program something called "Groove Radar" we've got to mention that. If only because DDR machines are the exact opposite of detecting coolness.






I'm tempted to find a copy of DDR for the computer (or emulate it) and see if I can play it with the wii balance board (since the f*****g wii died on me for no f*****g reason).
ReplyI've only met two people who can beat Max 300 on Heavy. Both can pass it easily.
ReplyThe arthur of this article must have had his ass kicked by DDR one too many times.
ReplyDoes it make me a nerd that every time I see "DDR" I think "DRAM Double-rate" memory?
ReplyYes.
well, a one legged man doing better at ddr than everyone i know has ruined my faith in humanity. JUST KIDDING! i lost that a few articles back...............
ReplyIs it wrong for a man to have a sugar baby \?? It is an absolutely extramarital relationship, but more and more services come out on Internet focusing on this kind of relationship, such as ___Milcupid. com__ ~~~~~~~~~~.
ReplyI swear, these spambots are getting dumber. One keeps sending penis enlargement ads to my mum...
ReplyThe fact that she now has a bulge in her frock and my dad whimpers like a little girl all the goddamn time means nothing.
OT: Great article, hate rhythm based games, they're not games at all, more like advanced versions of Simon Says, except not any funner when you're stoned. (As an aside, I've done Fire and the Flames on Hard, ladies form an orderly queue.)
umm... your mom's got a megaclitoris lol
here's hoping they'll come out with virtual reality soon! and the spambots can't hear, silly.
ReplyYOU FORGOT DANCE DNACE KARNOV
ReplySo.. what about soul calibur? anyone? amirite?
ReplyWhat about Soul Calibur? That game rules...
The first picture in this article couldn't have resumed the video games history better.
ReplySimply amazing.
I find a certain lack of DDR games for home consoles.
ReplyYour memory is repressing them. There're plenty of home console versions, it's just that the dance pad peripherals are terrible. I'll take the arcade version with their "non-delayed reading" and "structural stability" any day.
Get a Cobalt Flux
I know a girl who's into DDR, everything works out fine, until she wants me to play. Shooting games are the only real games left in arcades.
ReplyI thought Arcades were extinct? Everyone plays World of Warcraft now. I don't know about this dancing stuff, but I don't want to be smelly and dirty at some obsolete place like an arcade. I have more important things to do like go to Gamestop and laugh at Everquest lulsers.
ReplyDDR and Mortal Kombat are the only games I have ever gotten girls to play with me at an arcade. What does that say about me, or DDR or MK?
ReplyI had to make an account just to discuss this, there is actually a much harder DDR type game by the name of In The Groove or ITG for short, the difficulty on some of those songs will blow anything that DDR has out of the water. Also Paranoia, Bag, and Max 300 are far easier now then the newer songs released in the newer DDR machines (anything past DDR Extreme). Thats my two cents.
Reply"The single most impressive player ever, and possibly the only DDR dancer who'll make non-players feel worse about themselves. If he had your legs he'd have tap-danced up Everest by now! What are you doing with them?"
ReplyI lol'd hard at that. Mostly because it's so true. Whenever I would be out and see people that were really good at DDR I would laugh and say how lame they are and then feel better about myself. But then I see this dude with one leg and it makes me feel like an a*****e for not like, running a marathon or competing in an Olympic event or something.
Same. If I only had one leg I would play on sympathy for free drinks.
France, France, Revolution!
ReplyLiberte Egalite, Fraternite!
Isn't it a few years too late to start cracking jokes? ddr has come and gone. Hell I made this screename out of a ddr song and even I haven't played in over a year.
Replyi thought it was so funny cause ya i played and ya i totally looked retarded but this guys right it so funny to look back at this kinda stuff.
Reply