Valkyria Chronicles 2 Review

To this day, Valkyria Chronicles remains one of the most under-appreciated PlayStation 3 exclusives out there, regardless of how often the avid fans sing its praises. Some of those same fans were a little disappointed when the sequel came exclusively to the PSP, and it doesn’t help that the third installment also seems to be leaving PS3 owners out in the cold. That being said, strategy/RPG aficionados will most certainly want to dive into this sequel; it’s very much like the original, and although I’m not the biggest fan of the new school sim feature, Valkyria Chronicles 2 manages to retain much of its charm and intricate appeal. The depth is here, the storyline suffers only a bit due to extra emphasis on the aforementioned school feature, and above all else, that unique and oddly addicting gameplay is as good as ever. Honestly, if you were a super huge fan of the first title and you don’t yet own a PSP, VC2 might be enough of a reason to snag Sony’s portable.

As you might expect, we have to make allowances for the graphics, which obviously can’t be as accomplished or polished on the PSP. Even so, the cut-scenes are still super pretty and the in-game visuals are more than competent. I was actually surprised at how well detailed many of the characters were, the effects enhance the experience as always, and there’s only the anticipated lack of clarity and sharpness. If you can handle the latter and accept you’re playing this sequel on a lesser machine, you’ll be good to go. I do think there could’ve been more diversity in the environments, though, as there were three or four battles in a row where I began to get a little tired of my surroundings. I don’t remember this drawback being evident in the original on the PS3, which is why I mention it here. That aside, VC2 looks just fine and really, the story-driven scenes are pretty darn impressive for a handheld.

Concerning the sound, both the voice acting and soundtrack are definite highlights, although I might call the effects into question (due to an occasional lack of balance and intensity). Some of you probably know my favorite game of all time is Final Fantasy Tactics, so maybe I’m unfairly biased towards the musical talents of Hitoshi Sakimoto, but the quality and emotion of the tracks in VC2 is undeniable. I’m most thankful this one particular element of the first PS3 presentation carried over; it really gives the game that extra “oomph.” To me, the voiceovers in this sequel are solid, but a bit more hit-or-miss in comparison to the original. There are also less voices overall – again, to be expected – and like I just said, the effects don’t always do it for me. But man, the music is just so perfect and the complete sound package fits the style, theme, and structure of the game. So we definitely shouldn’t nitpick.

First and foremost, I want to make one thing very clear: if you liked Valkyria Chronicles, there’s little chance you won’t enjoy the sequel. The gameplay is almost exactly the same in terms of basic control and strategy; you still consume CP to move single or multiple units, you learn a large variety of new abilities and fresh tactics, and there’s that pseudo-third-person shooter view. It’s all here. Sega didn’t gimp VC2 just because they put it on the PSP, so don’t think for a second that we’ve received a watered-down, dissatisfying adventure. Personally, I’ve always loved the turn-based aspect of the game, which allows you to take as much time as you need to plan your strategy. The controls are straightforward and accessible, and the longer you play, the more depth you uncover. It’s actually quite mind-boggling, especially if you’re expecting some sort of strategy wannabe in a third-person shooter’s clothing.

Some of the uninitiated may get that impression from some of the screenshots and media. But the familiar know better. This being established, I should mention that Sega did make one significant concession to the PSP’s limited hardware: the battle sizes are smaller. There aren’t as many units involved in even the large-scale battles, and the battlegrounds are separated into different sections. You can also only deploy 6 units at a time this time around. Besides that, though, this is clearly Chronicles at its core. Everything works just about as well as it did before, and we even get a few new classes with which to experiment. The combination of massive amounts of micromanagement and the new school sim makes the game quite dynamic, even if I’ve long since grown tired of that distinctly Japanese schoolroom element. It was still cool to be able to control some of the school events by utilizing certain characters in battle; the two gameplay facets are tied together.

When VC2 was first announced, we found out the developers wanted to address the balancing issues some attentive fans spotted in the original. I’m not entirely sure Sega did everything they could do to fix the issue, though, because while there seems to be better balance on your side, the AI isn’t very bright. In fact, it can be downright stupid. Early on in the game, it might be understandable for the sake of difficulty purposes, but your foes never seem to get smarter. This drags the whole production down but thankfully, it can’t possibly destroy the inherent entertainment. Offering 35 unique classes and increasingly deeper upgrade systems for your weapons, there’s actually more to think about. If you’re a big fan of customization and micromanagement, you’ll probably lose hours to VC2; tweaking your characters and preparing for battle has never been so engrossing.

Then you’ve got the multiplayer, which lets you pick a leader and attack missions with up to four friends at your side. That’s a lot of fun – if you can find multiple people to team up with you – and Versus should be a big draw…although I still believe strategy/RPG is best played alone, I freely admit to wishing for a Versus mode in FFT, just to see how my team stacked up against human competitors. And it’s especially great for VC2 because, as I just mentioned, the AI isn’t exactly top-notch and it won’t be overly difficult to get the upper hand. Against a human opponent, however, all that changes. And even if multiplayer isn’t your bag, there’s no doubt that the single-player campaign will deliver the goods. How long might it take to complete over 100 different missions…? I have no idea, but I’m pretty damn certain you’ll get your money’s worth, and it’s nice to have the new multiplayer to add another dimension to the experience.

I’m still not sure about the whole school feature, the smaller battles may chafe, and I wasn’t as big a fan of the storyline. But even so, Valkyria Chronicles 2 is a more than worthy sequel: extra depth, more classes, more missions, more customization, the same gameplay the fans fell in love with back in 2008, and attractive multiplayer options make it a must for those who…well, you know who you are. If you never played the first game but own a PSP and consider yourself a strat/RPG follower, you’ll love it. I would dissuade those who have never sampled any sort of strategy game, but even if you’re just looking for something fresh and wildly in-depth, it’s right here. Just in a slightly smaller and more condensed package.

Gran Turismo 5 - Análise

Lidar com a perfeição leva tempo.

Ao todo foram praticamente seis longos anos de espera. Muitos adiamentos, indefinições, algumas demonstrações para tranquilizar os fãs e, pelo meio, uma versão limitada denominada Prologue (GT5) para entreter enquanto não chegava o prato principal. Nesse ciclo, o mais dilatado da a série, comunidade e fãs conviveram com grandes, para não dizer elevadas expectativas quanto ao resultado final. A colocação da fasquia num ponto tão alto projectou a ideia de uma obra desenvolvida por Kazunori Yamauchi e companhia a um nível cuja concorrência jamais conseguiria acompanhar, isto para além do potencial tecnológico e catalisador que se esperava obter a partir da PS3.

Mas, se nas anteriores plataformas da Sony, o jogo Gran Turismo tendia a acompanhar o lançamento de uma consola e normalmente não enfrentava tanta oferta da mesma espécie, a verdade é que desde que se estabeleceu a actual geração de sistemas, muitos títulos, mais ou menos titulares da mesma senha, foram inundando o segmento e formalizaram propostas com enorme valor, ao mesmo tempo que desafiavam a Polyphony Digital para sair do limbo e entrar em combate.

É um dos carros mais procurado do jogo, conceito para o mais rápido F1, projecto de Adrian Newey, projectista da equipa Red Bull.

É isso que sucede. Gran Turismo 5 está finalmente nas lojas e aberto ao escrutínio dos consumidores. Será, então, que esta obra da PD corresponde às firmes expectativas dos jogadores e alcança todos os méritos que são esperados depois de um tempo tão grande na mesa de trabalho? A ideia que fica é que a PD estudou e percebeu como as produtoras concorrentes lidaram com o género das corridas automóveis virtuais. Ora mais ou menos arcade, mais ou menos simulação, nos tempos que correm o “mainstream” está claramente apontado para os volantes com uma componente mais arcade, voltada para o contacto rápido e pejado de elementos que formam emoção e impacto imediatos. Isso leva-me a crer que o registo de um jogo onde predomina a aproximação à simulação, tende a derivar cada vez mais para segmentos muito específicos, praticamente de nicho, já que a absorção de uma proposta deste género exige sempre um volante e equipamento acessório para maximizar a oferta.

Posto isto, é nítido que a vocação de Gran Turismo 5 passa por esticar as fronteiras da simulação nas consolas. No PC contam-se outras propostas incontestáveis, que nem primam (de longe) pela beleza gráfica, sempre para nichos e comunidades afoitas, mas que traduzem de forma muito plausível o prazer de conduzir bólides a alta velocidade. É por demais evidente que esse é o objectivo primário de Kazunori, para mais se atentarmos no subtítulo de há longa data: “the real driving simulator”. Sendo esse o objectivo para Gran Turismo 5, então esta empreitada está no bom caminho, com alterações bem notórias face a Prologue e às anteriores demonstrações e passando por outros elementos que deixam a experiência bem mais completa.

Ao mesmo tempo a PD não cedeu nos elementos tradicionais e familiares da série, que porventura formaram, ao longo do tempo, uma espécie de contrabalanço face à exigência de um simulador; a aposta nos visuais cuidados, extrema, cuidada e detalhada modelação dos veículos e pistas, naquilo que é o tão propalado “car porn”. É lógico que para um volante cuja preocupação assenta na experiência de condução, o ambiente e posicionamento dos veículos numa perspectiva de observação seria limitada, normalmente algo secundário, da mesma forma que para um “arcade racer” não há preocupação com efeitos da aderência dos pneus ao asfalto, ou dureza dos mesmos, mas Kazunori sempre teve como ideal, para este género, fazer a ligação entre as duas pontes, ao propor um jogo visualmente irresistível e capaz de permitir uma condução simples para os menos dotados e equipados com acessórios (imprescindíveis para lucrar da experiência), até uma condução praticamente profissional, dentro das exigências de um simulador.

A condução dos Karts é algo sensível sobretudo nas curvas a grande velocidade e nas travagens.

Gran Turismo 5 consegue-o, ainda que também deixe a desejar, quer na modelação da esmagadora maioria dos automóveis e na maior parte das pistas herdadas. Não serve apontar para mais de 1000 carros disponíveis quando apenas 200 se encontram modelados ao melhor nível. A distinção entre veículos “premium” ou “standard” não é muito notória quando todos seguem numa repetição, mas para um utilizador que tenha por preferência a condução com vista no interior, isso faz diferença, para além do acabamento geral que é por demais evidente face aos outros veículos. Mas aqui também se põe a questão: justificar-se-ia percorrer e obter mais de 1000 carros modelados ao máximo quando apenas 100 ou 200 serão utilizados de forma regular pelos utilizadores? No final, e dentro da categoria dos carros “premium” estão lá todos os carros que interessam, organizados desde categorias inferiores, citadinos e carros do dia-a-dia, até desportivos, familiares, exóticos, concepts, relíquias do passado, veículos de competição, históricos, passando pelos F1, stock cars, WRC, carrinha Wolkswagen e até o tão famoso projecto de Adrian Newey para aquele que seria o mais rápido F1 de sempre se, para tal, fosse dada autorização.

A ambição de Kazunori Yamauchi mede-se também na importância quase bíblica dada ao jogo. Os carros “premium” permanecem dentro do concessionário, enquanto que os modelos “standard” são obtidos através da loja de usados, ao mais variado preço. Porém, e para cada veículo, existe uma vinheta descritiva sobre a história, origem e resultado do modelo, podendo ser lançada uma opção onde vemos uma demonstração em pista do carro enquanto o texto avança em forma de legenda. É uma espécie de culto pelo automóvel, acompanhado pela gestão de fotografias em corrida ou dentro de particulares cenários tridimensionais, normalmente relacionados com pistas próximas. A partir daí é possível obter bonitos postais e ângulos altamente detalhados, capazes de ombrear com fotógrafos profissionais que deambulem por um salão internacional automóvel. Isto faz as delicias de muitos entusiastas, a melhor fotografia, mas lá está, é um bónus sempre secundário face ao propósito do jogo, a exigência de um volante.

Mas nem aí a PD desarmou e a verdade é que para todos os efeitos e de uma só vez, a produtora cumpriu uma série de promessas que poucos acreditaram a dada altura. A inclusão de condições meteorológicas afectam a progressão da corrida pela necessidade de mudança de pneus, assim como a transição do dia para a noite e vice-versa, são factores que revitalizam as corridas, para não falar na modificação dos cenários e também na necessidade de ajustar o tipo de condução – à chuva a margem de erro é sempre maior e durante a noite a percepção das zonas de travagem é bem mais escassa.

SoulCalibur: Broken Destiny Review

Up until now, Tekken has been the only massive 3D fighter to arrive on the PSP. Years ago when Tekken: Dark Resurrection arrived on the PSP, I praised it for being a superb game that brought the very same console experience into the portable world, complete with a story mode, endings, and all. So with SoulCalibur: Broken Destiny on the way, I expected to see that same kind of treatment. And while Broken Destiny delivers in many areas, it fails in one critical aspect...

...That aspect is a proper story mode that comes complete with individual endings. A mission-based mode called The Gauntlet serves as this game's core experience and quite frankly it's pretty terrible. Essentially the game pits you against numerous rivals, but instead of full fledged fights, you have to carry out specific tasks/requirements that are displayed on the screen in order to progress. Now, each one of these "missions" lasts, on average, about five seconds, with a select few going as much as 20. These "missions" will often require you to dodge an attack, block an attack, block then counter an attack, or dodge then counter an attack. Needless to say, these mission requirements are pretty repetitive and tire quick. Sure there's a mildly amusing story behind The Gauntlet, but it's not nearly amusing enough to play the mode for.

Now, as far the gameplay transition from console to handheld goes, SoulCalibur: Broken Destiny does everything just right. Just like how Tekken: Dark Resurrection found its way flawlessly onto the PSP, you can expect that same level of quality from Broken Destiny's battles, complete with its superb fluidity. In total, over 30 fighters are found in the game, one of which is Kratos, in addition to an all new fighter Dampierre. Kratos is one of the heavier pushes for Broken Destiny, as he is actually the most prominent figure on the game's box art.

Of course, naturally, Kratos was my first pick to fight with, and it felt absolutely fantastic to kick some ass with him. He retains all of his signature attacks from the game, and they're particularly awesome to pull-off, too. Also, thanks to Sony, Namco-Bandai had the proper help when integrating Kratos into the SC universe. In fact, from what I was told by a Namco rep, the Kratos model in the game is actually the same one found in God of War: Chains of Olympus, which is very cool.

Character customization has been largely carried over from SoulCalibur IV, which means you'll be able to put your creativity to good use in the game, so feel free to create an all new fighter, or edit an existing one to your liking. But another complaint to address here is that Broken Destiny doesn't offer nearly as many unlockables as SCIV did, beyond extra items for the character customization. And while I understand this is a UMD game, it's not like Broken Destiny comes loaded with CG endings and cut-scenes for every character. And it's not like unlockables take up that much space anyways.

I will say this much, for the general Quickplay matches, SoulCalibur: Broken Destiny is fantastic. The fighting mechanics are still some of the most polished out there, and it really does make for a terrific fighter. But if you're looking for rich gameplay modes that you can play over and over to unlock cinematics and such, this isn't your game. Modes include Quickplay, Trials, The Gauntlet and Multiplayer, which is limited to two-player Ad-hoc, so no online gameplay here like you'd get with the console games.

Now, in my hands-on preview of the game last month, I had to rant about a certain aesthetic choice that Namco has veered towards, and I will regurgitate what it was I said...You see, it seems like ever since the apparent demise of the Dead or Alive franchise, Namco-Bandai have felt the need to fill in an overly-exaggerated-bouncing-breasts void that this industry most certainly did not need in the first place. I'm no morale God. Hell, I love me a curvy woman...I just prefer that woman to be real. I just feel extremely embarrassed to be playing a videogame where nearly half of the polygonal count on nearly half of the characters is in their chests. It continues to perpetuate a stereotype that this industry needs to get rid of; a stereotype that calls gamers lonely, geeky, virgin losers. Forgive my bluntness, but that's just simply the perception a majority of people still have of us.

With that rant out of the way, at least when you're playing on the PSP, you don't have to feel so embarrassed, because chances are nobody's going to notice the ridiculous details put into the female fighters, thanks to the screen size, unless they're standing and watching right over your shoulders. So you can enjoy the game for what it is, a great fighter. Yes, even though I just went on a quasi-diatribe, there's still no denying that SoulCalibur games are terrific playing fighters that have kept many coming back for years. And beyond the questionable aesthetic choices, Broken Destiny is actually a damn fine looking PSP game, boasting great character detail, beautiful backgrounds, fluid animations, a great framerate and other sharp visual touches.

If you've been playing SoulCalibur games for a while, you know precisely what to expect from the sound. The audio consists of the following SC franchise necessities: the battle announcer, fighters with voice actors who boast quickly before the fight, and a soundtrack that closely resembles the tunes of past SC games. Broken Destiny does all of this with ease, as you'd expect, and also gives you the ability to use Japanese voices. There's nothing really monumental to the sound of the game, as I've pretty much covered all there is to it.

In all honesty, if you're looking for a fighter and don't have a copy of Tekken: Dark Resurrection for PSP, I'd just go and buy that instead of Broken Destiny, especially since Tekken can be had for cheap. SoulCalibur: Broken Destiny isn't a bad game, it just feels extremely barebones in many areas, despite boasting one of the all time best mechanics for a 3D fighter. Once this hits the $20 mark, I'd spring for it - otherwise, leave this one alone for now, there are other fighters out there for the PSP.

Review: Premier Manager 2012 (After 1.01 Update)

Football loving PC gamers don’t realise how lucky they are. For the past 20 years they’ve had access to a series of consistently brilliant management games, allowing them to experience the challenges, joys and frustrations of managing a top-level football club. But what about console gamers? Sure there have been attempts in the past, and pretty good ones, but there’s also been a lot of yawnsome toss. So up steps Premier Manager 2012, aiming for the top corner.

But early reviews were fairly negative, pointing out that the time each game took ruined the flow of the game. Well, we held fire on our review, gave it some extras hours and waited for the inevitable update. And sure enough, version 1.01 has arrived with a key change that might just rescue Premier Manager from an embarrassing early cup exit at the hands of Burton Albion.

Your first sessions with the game don’t give you much hope. The menus themselves are similar in design to the PS3′s XMB and finding the options you need can be tricky while you learn your way around. It’s also sometimes difficult to work out how to do various things; even advancing to the next day took 5 minutes to figure out after the first time I ventured away from the home screen. The controls are oddly mapped as well, with the circle button advancing the game and R1 bringing up the main menu – when we’re used to circle taking you back, it’s weird having to use it to advance the game.

But once you’ve taken the time to work out how everything works, it’s easy enough to zip through the menus, setting your team up and hunting for players to improve your squad. The transfers themselves are easy enough to carry out, although the searching options and transfer process is extremely streamlined, giving you only the basic options. Match tactics are a similar story, with a few options easy to change (formations, attacking bias, passing style) but impossible to fine tune, but this in itself isn’t a huge issue. Console gamers generally aren’t after the same experience as PC fans, and if you’re used to playing games in bursts of an hour or so then this slimmer structure will suit you perfectly.

Something that makes life harder is the background music. It’s bad. Really bad. Not in the same way as being forced into a 24 hour Robbie Williams-athon, just in a very repetitive, boring “please stop” way (actually that is the same thing…). If the option was there to listen to your own background music from the XMB then it would make Premier Manager a very relaxing experience, combining laid back and casual management with some music time, but there isn’t. You can turn the music off totally (phew) but it’s not the ideal solution, especially considering there must be plenty of system resources available while the game is running. The rest of the game’s sounds are functional bongs, swooshes and more bongs that do a job but will hardly pick up awards, so it’s probably worth just turning the sound off completely and putting the radio on.

But what of the matches themselves? Well, they’re slow. Even with the match speed set to “Fast” you’ll be watching each one for good couple of minutes, and the engine used to watch each game isn’t exactly flushed with detail. The pitch view is too small to be helpful, and the commentary is just a list of shots, bookings and goals. Hardly enough to judge how the match is going. They’re a bit of a waste of time really, and apart from making the odd substitution you might as well use the saving grace that 1.01 offers: the “Result Only” option.

After updating, you can now head into the menu and turn on an option that allows you to skip the match completely and just see the result. You still get to see stats of the game and player ratings, so you can see if your new signing is performing or if the new formation worked out well. You just don’t need to sit and watch a game play out that you can’t, in any way, speed up sufficiently or have much control over.

It’s a game changer. Instead of sitting down and playing a few matches you can now rattle through half a season easily in one sitting. The limitation of the game are still there; they haven’t changed the music, added more depth or found any official licenses hiding down the back of the sofa, but the flow of the game has increased considerably, even if it detaches you a little from the action.

But then there’s the issue of the price. If Premier Manager 2012 had a bargain price tag it would be easy to recommend to people after a bit of light-hearted, accessible managing, but it’s £13.99 which, by PSN standards, is a chunky request. And is there really enough here to spend that much money on? I’m not sure. It’s not a bad game by any means, but if you’ve got access to a reasonable PC then there shouldn’t be any competition on which way to look. It’s one of those games where someone asks you if it’s any good, and you just shrug and say “yeah it’s alright, not bad, not great…”. Worth looking into if you really fancy some management on your PS3 (especially with the new update) but it’s a lot of cash if you’re just a bit intrigued.

So Premier Manager 2012 got past the tricky 1st round tie, but ended up losing on penalties to Walsall. Maybe next year, eh?

Review: Start the Party: Save the World

Adding the word “party” into the title of a game is generally not a good omen. Trying to aim a game at the whole family is a harder task than opening a walnut with nothing but your forehead, so when Supermassive Games came up with Start the Party: Save the World they had a sizable task in making sure it didn’t fall into the oh-so-regular family trap of turning into something totally pointless. Did they manage it? Well… no. Not really.

When the Move was announced, a lot of people were concerned that the market would be flooded with shallow games, mimicking the Wii’s huge library of titles with no objective other than to flap your hands about the place for a few minutes at a time. Save the World takes a few steps to make its mini games a little more skillful, but there’s still nowhere near enough here to warrant rushing out and handing over your hard earned cash. It doesn’t really fare too well from the start, where you’re greeted with a main menu that gives you the choice of Options, and Solo or Group Play. There’s no difficulty settings or extra bonus items to aim for, but if the games are great fun then we could look over that happily enough.

But jumping into the games doesn’t really help much due to just how mixed the results are. With the general theme of Dr Terrible (steady with the imagination…) and his cronies doing everything to get in the way of the World and its day to day running, the mini games generally follow the theme of saving people from nasty situations. There’s no specific order to play them in, and each game is given a voiceover by a cheesy American guy to explain what’s going on and how you can help, so you don’t need to memorise how each game works. From here you’ll be drawing clouds, controlling a helicopter, repairing robots and several other tasks using your trusty Move controller. And while some of the mini-games are really well made, others are just a bit random and frustrating.

A couple of games have you using the Move as a drawing tool, by doing such things as drawing clouds to bounce falling cavemen into caves, or drawing huge laser circles around aliens to blow them up. These games work very well indeed, with the accuracy of the Move helping to make it a quite skillful set of games. Another favourite of mine was the ambulance game, whereby you balance an injured person on a big hand sticking out of an ambulance as it goes up and down hills and over speed bumps. You’ll need to collect first aid kits as you go, and doing so means you sometimes need to throw your casualty around and catch it carefully. It’s good fun at first, but it’s not hard to get the hang of it and once the challenge is gone, it loses its appeal.

This is a problem with many of the games. A few are fun for a while, but the challenge just doesn’t last. Others are just plain repetitive – having to clean, repair and extinguish robots on a production line is interesting until you’ve played it a couple of times, then you won’t go back to it. A second player can make things a bit more enjoyable; using the Sixaxis controller you can generally control something else within the game to make life trickier for the main player, which makes flicking fish into a boat slightly harder when player 2 is moving the boat around the place. But this isn’t all of the multiplayer action you can expect.

So, it’s a party game. Many of the games aren’t great on your own, but surely with a few friends it all picks up? Sadly that’s not really the case. There are a couple of game modes to play with your fellow gamers – Group Play and Quick Fire. They’re both pretty similar; Group Play just lets you play a few games, hand the Move over to someone else and see who gets the highest score. Quick Fire is basically the same, but you only get a short time on each game before it quickly moves on to the next which, for parties, is probably the best bet to stop your viewers waiting for too long. It’s the same set of 20 games you’ve got available in single player, and there isn’t really much of a party element other than taking it in turns.

So Start the Party: Save the World falls into that trap that so many have fallen into before. It’s not really a party game, although it is a game that kids might find entertaining for a couple of weekends. Considering you can pick it up for a touch over £10 it might not be a terrible bet for the kids, but it’s disappointing that Supermassive didn’t do more here, especially considering it’s the second game in the series. Yes a handful of mini-games are entertaining, but it’s not enough to recommend.

Review: Get Up and Dance

Dance games eh, can anyone remember a time when they weren’t around? Ok so anyone who can remember a time before the Wii probably can, but now they’re a regular feature across all three main consoles and it’s getting increasingly difficult to ignore them. But with so many now on the market it takes something special to stand out from the crowd and get noticed, and with Get Up and Dance O Games have tried to inject something new into a busy market. It’s a shame it isn’t really enough to wow you.

Leaning firmly towards entertaining a few friends at once Get Up and Dance allows you to boogie along to any of the 30 songs provided either alone or with a few mates. While the options are there to dance alone, it’s the group dance modes that shine the brightest, giving you options to either do one off dances or starting a short career in front of a set of talent judges. It’s easy enough to settle on a lead dancer and assign others as backing dancers, giving a slightly more authentic feel to other “everyone do the same” type games. The odd thing is the choice of songs on offer, where the mixed bag is hoping to please everyone. In reality, in the same way a radio station that’s a mix of Radio 2, XFM and Kerrang would only please the most eclectic of music fans, the selection of songs in Get Up and Dance won’t please everyone all of the time, and you’ll probably only find a couple that you actually genuinely like. It’s not every day you find Pulp, Dusty Springfield and Jessie J on the same menu. As a result it’s probable there’ll be a small argument about song choice, resulting in your little sister sulking when you refuse to dance to Taio Cruz.

Other game modes include an interesting fitness option, which gives you a month-long set of dance exercises with the intention of knocking a few pounds off, but each dance is so lightweight it won’t really do much to anyone except the most doughnut-quaffing fatster, so it’s really an option for someone looking for a longer term game mode to keep them interested. Sadly, with the other game modes being fairly standard fare you’re unlikely to find any real longevity anywhere other than this, and you get the feeling this will find a spot near the back of the game shelf next to the other “party” games that only come out at Christmas, birthdays or any other time where Nan has had an extra sherry and wants to shake her stuff.

This dance is accompanied by the winners of The Gormless Factor 2011

Technically it’s sound enough; the Move integration is tight and responsive, and goes some way to show me just how bad I am at dancing. The idea of playing the music video in the background to make you feel like you’re really dancing in a show doesn’t really work when you end up looking like Mr Bean at a disco, although the younger gamers might find this a nice touch. It also doesn’t help that the little icons telling you what to do come a little later than would be helpful, and falling over is more of a certainty than a worry. It goes well with the Mr Bean look.

So, it’s another dancing game. Another dancing game that does its best to be something new, but all things considered just… isn’t. It works, and isn’t a bad game as such, but when there’s so much else on the market that does the same thing it’s just very hard to give a firm recommendation. If you can pick it up cheap, have a few friends to play with (who each need their own Move controller) and enjoy dancing to every style of music this side of opera, then you might just click with it and have a ball. Otherwise it’s difficult to see where Get Up and Dance fits into a market busier than your average Pussycat Dolls gig.