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Viva La Revolution |
Hop aboard the Dance Dance Revolution party train,
and prepare to sweat. |
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March 06, 2001 issue
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Rachel
Lehmann-Haupt
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Caption: The video
game shouts encouragements and tips, such as “Stay
cool” and
“Faster.”
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techno-beat music pulsates. Red and blue lights flash
under your feet. And yo, yo, yo you are hip-hopping,
breaking moves in the latest video game craze. Part
Twister, part techno-rave, part high-impact workout,
Dance Dance Revolution is no couch potato computer game:
after two five-minute rounds on the arcade dance
machine, even turbo athletes will break a sweat.
Forget joysticks. Konami, the leading
video-game maker in Japan, created Dance Dance hoping to
reverse the slipping revenues of formerly favorite
shoot-'em up and sports games. It worked. In three years
Dance Dance has become the hottest arcade and home-video
game in Japan.
Now it's catching on in the
United States. At the glittery Sony Metreon
mall in downtown San Francisco, members of informal club
DDR Freak meet to compete. In Manhattan, the hot spot is
Bar Code, a Times Square arcade.
You'll
find it at home soon. Video-game companies, including
Enix, Sega, and Sony, have created similar
dance games for Sega's Dreamcast and the Sony
PlayStation. Konami released the first U.S. home
version, for the Sony PlayStation, in February. The
Konami version includes a calorie counter-a sure way to
inspire workouts, if not improve your moves on real
dance floors.
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