Dance Central 3 Review: Please Don’t Stop the Music

Game Reviewed: Dance Central 3

Release Date: October 16th, 2012

Developer: Harmonix

Publisher: Microsoft

Platform: [Reviewed: Xbox 360]

Genre: Music

Rated: T for Teen

All great things must come to an end. Not sure who exactly came up with that one but I can assure you they weren’t referring to gaming. That’s not to say that line wouldn’t perfect fills the shoes of a few FPS out nowadays, but it definitely doesn’t fit in with a hot title that boils your blood and makes your heart pump to the beat it feels.

I’m talking about the number #1 dancing game for XBOX 360 Kinect, Dance Central 3. I once stated that Dance Central left many families Crankin’ Dat Soulja Boy. Well if that wasn’t enough, DC2 followed up a year later to keep bodies movin’ and had everyone saying “Yeah!” So where exactly does Dance Central find it’s mark?

Dance Central reigns supreme as the best Kinect dancing game simply because its unique tracking system. Sure you have others like Just Dance that tells you how you perform each move, but DC always physically shows you on screen your errors. If you were off on any particular move, your player displays a red beam over the body part that didn’t quite match up with the onscreen character.

If you’ve yet to play Dance Central 1 or 2, I advise you do so. The best aspect of Dance Central is the story mode. Agent Rasa and Lima leads you through your rankings in the D.C.I. Dance Central Intelligence.

Dance Central 3’s gameplay remains high standard. As you run through one of your favorite songs or dance routines, the onscreen players begin to feel like your entourage wherever the game shows them as a mirroring image.

When navigating through menus you have the choice of swaying your right arm to progress and left to go back or use the “See it, Say it” introduced in DC2. Moves are directed through onscreen flashcards to instruct you on each move to be performed, along with a virtual character doing the move as well. A beam on the feet of the character will flash how accurate you string the dance moves together while red auras will highlight specifically what body part was not properly positioned.

The soundtrack this year plays a big role as well. Through regular dance sessions, you may not catch it at first, but it’s genuinely the bread and butter of the story mode. In addition, with the songs catering more to the story, it helps balance song selections through different era’s, typically for different age groups from the 70’s on up.

Back to what was mentioned in the beginning about all great things, Dance Central is amazing and hasn’t quite overstayed its welcome yet. It’s slowly becoming a mimic of its own product, same game new songs, but it still a fresh title with much more potential.

Two years and the heart of DC is still beating strong. Harmonix continues to put good and accurate use to the Kinect, one of the originals in fact. This is yet again a must have for the holidays, for the family, for the love of the music.

 Gameplay: 4.25/5

Visuals: 4.5/5

Audio: 4.5/5

Controls: 4.5/5

Value: 4/5

Overall Rating: 4.25/5