heard of the arcade game known as Dance Dance Revolution, DDR for short. The basic concept is to watch the screen for arrows scrolling past, and when they hit the top of the screen you step on the corresponding arrow.What you may not know is that one year after DDR's realese another dance game arrived on the scene: Pump It Up. Made in Korea this game has the same basic game play with a few subtle changes. The most obvious difference is that while DDR uses the four cardinal directions (up, down, left and right), Pump It Up uses four diagonal arrows and a fifth center pad. This has lead to many claims of Pump It Up's (PIU or just "Pump" for short) superiority to DDR in difficulty. This debate usually degrades to fan boy level insults however, like the more mainstream console wars.
One definite advantage of Pump is that it's less protected by it's manufacturer. When Finish Line wanted to make a commercial featuring their shoes and a dancing video game. Instead of pay out the nose for Konami's blessing (the makers of DDR) they instead went with Pump. Take a look for yourself:
And that's not the end of the dance arcade games. You've also got In The Groove, a DDR look-a-like by ROXOR games that allows custom step patterns from players. And in the arm-moving department there is Para Para Paradise, where you wave your arms through sensors to mimic "Para Para" dancing style, a hybrid between the Macarena and karaoke.
With any luck, you now know more than you did! And maybe have an urge to listen to Vivaldi's Winter again.
