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Grease Dance
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Graphics & Sound:
Grease Dance doesn't go for ultra-realism in the visual department and that's a good thing. I think they would have had a hard time pulling it off and when you are talking about a movie that is over 30 years old, taking a more fun and creative approach works best. They took the cartoony approach, which actually fits quite well into the movie's intro song, which is also cartoon, although a different style. All of the characters look like stylized versions of themselves and work well, all except for the character Jan, who seems to have shed about 150 lbs. Good for her.
What I liked was the fact that they took certain iconic songs and created cartoon recreations of those scenes from the movie. This is great, especially as it concerns the dance levels because when you are playing "Born to Hand Jive," the characters are actually doing the hand jive in the background and so must you. The cartoon is the same behind the karaoke level, but you just don't have to follow along with the moves. What I didn't like was the fact that there just weren't enough of these. Every time I would hit upon a cool song I remember from the film and hoped to see the scene from the movie, instead what I'd see is a cartoon of some guy crooning on stage, at least in the Karaoke section. It might not sound too bad, but to see him soulfully singing "Hopelessly Devoted To You" (complete with the female voice and all) was a bit disconcerting. While it's an understandable tool for some of the more minor tunes in the game, ones not really sung by the main characters and those that aren't iconically recognized as Grease songs, it's not okay for major songs like Rizzo's "There Are Worse Things" and Danny Zuko's "Sandy." And don't get me started about "Beauty School Dropout" because the lack of the famous scene on that one was really disappointing. Aside from that, all of the main songs are there, along with a bunch of others like "Hound Dog," "It's Raining on Prom Night" and "Tutti Frutti." Chances are you'll skip them if your main draw was to sing Grease songs. Yes, these were in the movie, but they aren't the songs the movie is known for.
As a side note, there are curse words and raunch in some of these songs (just as there was in the film), so the game earns its Teen rating.
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Gameplay:
Grease Dance is one part dance game, one part karaoke game and one part mini-game mishmash. Honestly, I think they'd have been far more successful if they had just stuck with the karaoke and made it all it could be, but alas, they did not.
Let's get this out of the way, first and foremost. I am the target demographic for Grease Dance. Not just that I would like it, but I am a person who has always wanted to be able to sing Grease songs in a karaoke game (yeah, I know - don't judge me). I loved the movie as a kid, and even when the original Karaoke Revolution released, I was thrilled that one of the song choices was "You're the One That I Want." Unfortunately, due to it's less-than-pristine controls, bland background videos for many songs, and pointless mini-games, Grease Dance is clearly less than what I had hoped it would be.
On the karaoke side, you have 20 songs to choose from, separated into either Easy, Medium or Hard, depending on the song. There aren't tweakable levels per song, mind you, just more difficult songs. Completing earlier songs unlocks later songs, so you have to play easier songs to be able to get to some of the later songs. That being said, you can run through the songs pretty quickly and unlock all of the songs in rapid fashion.
On the dance side, the same theory applies, however completing dance numbers unlocks mini-games, in addition to the harder dance areas. Why you couldn't unlock some mini-games through karaoke and some through dance is beyond me, but they aren't fun, so you won't really care, anyway. More on them later. You'll select a dance number (many of which are repeats from the karaoke side) from the 15 choices and you'll see the cartoon video play. It will be your job to mimic the moves on the screen using the Kinect to get through the dance. There's no tutorial level of the dance, you are simply thrown in. A single figure diagram is shown on the left side to represent what you are supposed to do, but it only shows one tiny part of your move, so it's not much help. Basically, you are supposed to flounder until you get a good rating for each particular move. Good luck. Fortunately, the game is incredibly forgiving. You can pretty much barely accomplish the moves and still get an A+ rating. You can play co-op with a partner or play against them, or you can play with a group in a party type setting with either pass the mic for karaoke or taking turns. The mini-games also have a versus or co-op mode if you want to play against someone or three (but you probably don't).
The mini-games can have you doing anything from brushing your hair during Rizzo's slumber party, to beating out dents in a car or tightening lug nuts in a scene from Greased Lightning, to swinging baseball bats and throwing basketballs in a battle of the Greasers vs. Jocks. I didn't find the Kinect super responsive on these games and they were more of a chore than anything else. Quite simply, they weren't fun at all.
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Difficulty:
Although Grease Dance divides the songs and dances into categories of either Easy, Medium or Hard, the game practically hands you thousands of points, regardless of whether you do a good or bad job, at least in the Karaoke and Dance modes. I'm pretty good at karaoke and not that great at the dance side of things, yet I don't think I ever got below an A+ rating on a dance. Trust me when I say I didn't deserve an A+. On the dance side, I am guessing the level of difficulty has more to do with the level of intensity of the dance moves rather than the difficulty, since the game doesn't seem to care if you nail the move or not.
For the karaoke songs, again, as long as you are making some noise at the appropriate time, you will earn points. I noticed the game seemed to penalize me on some parts of the song that I know I nailed, so I don't exactly trust the accuracy of the scoring, but it seems the game assigns points so freely that it doesn't really matter.
Overall, I chalk most of the difficulty up to the frustrating aspects of the game - the totally un-fun and difficult to play mini-games and the difficulty in getting the Kinect to recognize me in the mini-games. |
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Game Mechanics:
Grease Dance is controlled entirely by the Kinect and you can even use the Kinect for the Karaoke Mode, although personally, I preferred using a microphone. You'll have to get yourself setup and recognized by the Kinect, then log in using your Gamertag. You'll then select a character to play as from the movie's recognizable characters like Sandy, Danny, Frenchie, Rizzo, Kenickie and so on, but here's the kicker. It only matters during the score tally, because your character won't be the one singing and dancing in the videos. That is all predetermined based on the song, so it's more of a throwaway than anything else.
Once you have a character selected, you'll choose between Karaoke, Dance, Party Play and Options, which is where you'll find the Mini-games and Videos you'll unlock as you progress. Each selection you make must be done by waving your hand at the Kinect, no controller is used whatsoever.
During Karaoke songs, it was relatively easy to get high scores and the calibration seemed fairly forgiving. As long as you were making some noise during the parts of the song you needed to, you'd score points. When doing the Dance portions, even on the harder dance numbers, as long as you are moving around, you'll earn points. Again, the calibration just isn't tight, which may or may not please you because you certainly won't be required to exercise exact precision. Where this becomes a patent failure is in the mini-games, which can involve anything from doing the motions of brushing your hair, to tightening lug nuts on a car, to throwing basketballs. I had a really difficult time with these mini-games. It was a combination of the Kinect not recognizing my motions and also the game not providing very good examples of what you needed to do. Whatever the combination, the mini-games were not fun at all and were actually a complete chore.
Overall, Grease Dance just wasn't what I had hoped it would be. While I enjoyed the ability to sing classic Grease songs, I wasn't crazy about the dance aspect and I simply hated the mini-games. If you've always wanted to try Grease-inspired karaoke and dance, I say give this one a weekend rent and get it out of your system, but don't waste the money to buy the game.
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-Psibabe, GameVortex Communications AKA Ashley Perkins |
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