Dance Dance Revolution

I bought Dance Dance Revolution for the PS2 about a month ago, and I played it pretty heavily up until the week before the MS 150 and then picked it up again last week. Good stuff.

If you're not familiar, you purchase something called a Beat Pad that acts as the PS2 controller. You step on directional areas as directed on screen by the program, and it rates how well you do.

I'm somewhat of a klutz (just ask my bike), but I've got enough musical background that I picked this up pretty easily (thank goodness it doesn't rate my arm movements, though). Shape and other Fitness magazines recommended this game because of the workout mode, which is impressive but has a big downside. Basically, songs aren't longer than a minute to a minute and a half at most, meaning you get you heart rate up, and then it dips a bit while you're picking your next song. I read that the next two editions of the series (the 3rd one for PS2 releases in the US tomorrow) have a mode where you can string several songs together with just a short break while they switch from one to another, so this should take care of my concern.

About 6 of the songs are so dastardly difficult I can't do them at all yet, but there's a training mode that lets you decrease the tempo so you can commit crazy step sequences to memory.

All in all, if you like to jump around/dance but don't really like to exercise, this could be a nice gateway into the fitness experience.

On Thursday, I'm going to visit a local Curves to get the lowdown on the popular women-only quick workout facility. Expect a write-up soon after.

P.S. The Curves visit is only to satisfy curiosity. I talked with the manager and told her I just wanted to learn and write about it for others (put something useful on this blog and all). I don't imagine it's for me, either. But I'm betting you I can make myself sore by working intensely. I do shoulders today (Tuesday) and then just cardio on Wednesday so everything's healed and ready for the Curves full body workout. hln

Posted by hln at September 20, 2004 06:37 PM | Fitness | TrackBack