SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE?
Why yes I do believe I can dance... dance dance revolution that is!
I love this game. I stopped playing it in high school through now, but I was a hardcore DDR fan back in the day. I would play nonstop with buckets of sweat coming out. I swore I lost like 10 pounds playing this game. Maybe I should start again. But that's besides the point.
A little history lesson my friends. Dance Dance Revolution was introduced in 1998 from Konami as a new form of gaming arrived. DDR was introduced as a line of games called Bemani, which involved music and interaction. I Believe that Beatmania was the first creating, which focused on a similar concept to DDR, but with a DJ styled control. Introduced as an arcade game, DDR quickly became popular with the people of Japan. It then came to the US and swept people off their feet, literally.
One of the reasons why I think that DDR became so popular was because of its highly interactive nature. It went where no other video games had gone and introduced the physical apsect to gaming. No longer are you the observer, sitting down, playing with a controller, but you physically became the controller while dancing. Aside from its cardio benefits, this game definitely became a crowd favorite because it was able to involve people in a new dimension. Socially, it forced become who were normally afraid to dance into the center of attention, and many lost their fear.
While physically playing the game, a new factor of game play is introduced, FATIGUE! No longer are you worrying about the fatigue of the character, but your own physical state. You cannot play this game for 12 hours at a time without hurting yourself, believe me, I've tried before. It is one of the few games that will leave you broken and sore, but yet, you'll be asking for more. By involving so much cardio, your hear rate speeds up, almost accelerating your own body. If you get good enough, it seems as if time does slow down for you as you are able to hit every step, making one feel like a god. Endorphins kick in, similar to the Runner's high, continuing to slow down you're perception of time. You are invincible. You become a DDR master.
I love this game. I stopped playing it in high school through now, but I was a hardcore DDR fan back in the day. I would play nonstop with buckets of sweat coming out. I swore I lost like 10 pounds playing this game. Maybe I should start again. But that's besides the point.
A little history lesson my friends. Dance Dance Revolution was introduced in 1998 from Konami as a new form of gaming arrived. DDR was introduced as a line of games called Bemani, which involved music and interaction. I Believe that Beatmania was the first creating, which focused on a similar concept to DDR, but with a DJ styled control. Introduced as an arcade game, DDR quickly became popular with the people of Japan. It then came to the US and swept people off their feet, literally.
One of the reasons why I think that DDR became so popular was because of its highly interactive nature. It went where no other video games had gone and introduced the physical apsect to gaming. No longer are you the observer, sitting down, playing with a controller, but you physically became the controller while dancing. Aside from its cardio benefits, this game definitely became a crowd favorite because it was able to involve people in a new dimension. Socially, it forced become who were normally afraid to dance into the center of attention, and many lost their fear.
While physically playing the game, a new factor of game play is introduced, FATIGUE! No longer are you worrying about the fatigue of the character, but your own physical state. You cannot play this game for 12 hours at a time without hurting yourself, believe me, I've tried before. It is one of the few games that will leave you broken and sore, but yet, you'll be asking for more. By involving so much cardio, your hear rate speeds up, almost accelerating your own body. If you get good enough, it seems as if time does slow down for you as you are able to hit every step, making one feel like a god. Endorphins kick in, similar to the Runner's high, continuing to slow down you're perception of time. You are invincible. You become a DDR master.
Labels: felix
posted by Felix Wong at
8:27 PM
2 Comments:
It's so true! What better way (for gamers) to get exercise than by playing a game that involves moving about? This was a totally different approach to gaming, and I'm pretty sure this was the thing that started several more interactive "beat" games, including Elite Beat Agents, Karaoke Revolution Party, Donkey Konga and {my personal favorites} the Guitar Hero series.
DDR seemed to really bring on a revolution where the simple controls of a game console were destroyed and the entire body became a part of the game. I think this is the beginning of an era where the controls of games are integrated into bodily movements. This can even be seen in the new Wii where the developers have tried to make every game use their new controller which adapts to human movement rather than just pressing buttons.
Oh and talking about DDR, one of my friend's cousins back in Korea said he lost loads of weight playing DDR. He used to be big because he just played video games all the time, but then he found DDR. See... DDR changes the world one person at a time.
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