`Don't Shoot, Just Dance'

[blue-kun]

A recent news article on San Jose Mercury News talks about DDR and other music games. Also mentioned is some interesting point about the kinesthetic element in DDR -- how you can actually feel your body moving, stepping on the pads and use the feeling as feedback reference while playing DDR.
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[s7yl33]

im too lazy to sign up, just to be able to read the article. can i get a full qoute of it please?
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[DDRmaniacplayer]

Yeah, same here, I don't think I want to register just to read the article...

[J Dogg]

http://www.bugmenot.com/view.php?url=mercurynews.com
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[rber]

Arcade moves

DON'T SHOOT, JUST DANCE WHEN PLAYING NEW VIDEO GAME

By Graham Toben

Read This Writer

Channing Conger, a junior at Crystal Springs High School in Hillsborough, walks into the Malibu Grand Prix arcade in Redwood City. After exchanging his dollar bills for tokens, he walks up to a machine with blaring sounds and flashing lights.

But he's not looking to shoot up ghouls or try his hand at car racing. He's there to dance.

When his turn comes up, he steps onto a metal platform and selects a song. He stamps out a beat by coordinating his feet with blazing arrows on the screen. By the time he is done with the song, he is out of breath but smiling.

Conger is a fan of ``Dance Dance Revolution,'' or DDR, a game that helped usher in a new breed of video games based on rhythm instead of the traditional shooter games.

``The simplicity of the game draws in people from all ages. It's simple to understand but near impossible to perfect,'' Conger said.

DDR has helped blaze a trail for new, musically oriented games, with Konami, the maker of DDR, leading the way. Now gamers can test their coordination and skills with a variety of new games:

• ``Guitar Freaks''-- use a guitar to play popular songs;

• ``Beatmania'' -- tests DJ skills;

• ``Taiko No Tatsujin'' -- Taiko drumming game;

• ``Mambo a Go Go'' and ``Samba de Amigo'' -- conga drum and maraca simulation.

Some education officials see benefits from these games.

``What's unique and attractive about these games is that it integrates the ways in which people think and learn -- there's a kinesthetic element to it that you can't find in a shooting game,'' said Lori Hamilton-Durbin, who is the head of the Middle School at Nueva School in Hillsborough.

These games are helping break the gamer-as-couch-potato stereotype.

Some people have actually used it to lose weight. Xbox and Playstation versions of DDR have a workout mode in which dancers can track how many calories they have used.

Tyson Mao, a junior at the California Institute of Technology, says that while he hasn't lost weight, ``it's fun just to be physically moving'' in an arcade.

``I like it because it's something I can excel at,'' Mao added.

The basic premise is to require players to repeat a rhythm. In DDR, a player stands on a metal pad marked with four arrows -- up, down, left and right -- with the dancer in the middle of the arrows. As the song begins, arrows scroll up the screen until they are in shadow at the top. When the arrow is inside the shadow, the dancer steps on the corresponding arrow.

But as simple as it sounds, it can take years to perfect. ``I've been playing for three years,'' said Conger, ``and I'm still not half as good as others are.''

Mao agreed. ``You go back time after time because there are always harder and harder songs. You're forced to do better and better.

``Also,'' Mao said, ``it's just plain addictive.''
Graham Toben is a junior at Crystal Springs High School in Hillsborough.


For those of you that are too lazy.

[Tomo_kun]

*yawn*. Its full of stale, slightly wrong information. Annother day, annother badly written article about DDR.


Beatmania- A game used to test your DJ skills. How increadably wrong.
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[rber]

Well the person who wrote the article is junior in high school. You can't really expect excellent journalism from them.

[Daniel]

I would actually expect a better article from a middle schooler, because he/she is more likely to be involved with the community than a professional writer who always collects random assorted information.

[s7yl33]

lol. i didnt like it. ddr is not educational dispite whatever anybody says.
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[Den]

[Edible Bondage Tape]

[Tomo_kun]

[Ever]

Is it just me or do all these articles always sound the same?

If people are going to keep writing the same things, at least they should get the help of someone who plays the games so that the information is correct..

[Misaki's Midnite Blaze]

That was a pretty amusing article...seeing how I think I was actually there that day only I was to busy playing Initial D that I didn't note the newspaper people there but I doubt I would love to talk about why I DDR hehe


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Osaka wants some love tooooooo

[SaeNoDa]

For all of you "mainstream article haters."

If you were writing an article about DDR and you knew you had to cater to people who knew ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about the game and had to do it in as few words as possible (as to keep attention), how would you do it?

It's HARD.

I get so sick and tired of all of these kids saying, "Hurhur, another bad DDR article...durdurdur."

There will BE NO SUCH THING as a good DDR article to you because they will never be catering to the DDR hardcore. Only to the mainstream.

So please get over yourselves and realize that the mainstream media isn't doing everything it can to write specifically to the guys who know everything there is about the game and the genre. They just want to inform people about something that they probably didn't know.

Good enough for me.
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http://www.nnr.ca/DDR/profile.php?UserID=1569
Hasn't been updated in a while ; ;

[Phrekwenci]

The thing is, we don't need an angle. We already know about the game, the good, the bad. We don't need to get interested, we already are.

The public needs a hook, something to grab the peoples attention. Saying "you follow the arrows on the screen" doesn't sound appealing at all. So once the news gave way to a video game that is also a good form of exercise, we have ourselves a hook.

And by the way, I didn't read the article. But I have a good feeling it was about exercise just because it's the popular hook for the media to use right now.

[Boltstorm]

It seemed to me he was talking about how you can hear and feel your own footsteps and that's how you learn how to PA. But I may be mistaken.

Oh an as far as musical education goes playing DDR can vastly improve your musical talents. It teaches you how to keep the beat.
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[lxv]

[kkslider11290]

Here is a great idea a DDR article thats not bout weight loss

[Septagon]