14 DAY TRIAL // Comic Con might not be a place that is immediately associated with music themed games and with dancing but Harmonix and MTV Games, the two companies behind the hugely successful Rock Band franchise and its various spin offs, had a panel at the 2010 edition of the fair titled “Faux Fun to Real Rock”. And the two most interesting topics addressed were the upcoming Rock Band 3 and Dance Central.
While those following the development of Rock Band 3 got to know the names of six new tracks that will appear in the game when it arrives on October 26 those who are more interested in dancing only heard the titles of three other songs that will be appearing in Dance Central. They are: Snoop Dogg performing “Drop It Like Its Hot”, Salt-N-Pepa with their classic dance ring track “Push It” and Young MC performing “Bust A Move”. These songs join offerings from artists like Lady Gaga, M.I.A., Bell Biv Devoe and No Doubt.
Dance Central was one of the most talked about titles at the recently concluded E3 trade show, getting both the Best Original Game and Best Motion Simulation Game awards from the critics that saw the big titles of the event. The game is set to be launched in North America exclusively on the Xbox 360 from Microsoft, making full use of the Kinect motion tracking system that is launched on the same day.
The idea behind Dance Central is pretty ambitious. Motion tracking technology will be used to track the dance moves of the player, with more than 600 actions registered in the database and more than 90 complete dance routines created by choreographers available to learn and perform. Dance Central is unique and attractive because it requires no actual peripheral on the part of the gamer, allowing him or her to focus on the dancing while Kinect maps the moves and turns them into input for the video game.