Dance Central 2

The Short


Pros
- Keeps the same precise detection from the first game and makes it better
- Now you can dance with two players!
- Adds voice control/options from the menu
- A new career mode
- Gives you the option to remove that silly "freestyle" option
- Over 40 songs on disc, can import the 32 from Dance Central, and plays all DLC
- Improved Break it Down mode fixes the minor issues from the first version
- New characters and locales
- Difficulty levels are improved; easy is a lot funner and has more variation, while hard isn't just the same as previous difficulties with a few extra moves pasted in
- Changes to the scoring system are an improvement
- Improved sorting options for your song list, and you can now make playlists
- The things the dancers say are substantially less stupid

Cons
- Cut the Lady Gaga wanna-be character. She was my favorite! Well, besides Mo.
- Despite the things said being less stupid, they still are pretty dumb
- Career mode is welcome but hardly necessary or in-depth
- Justin Bieber? Whip My Hair? Why?
- Nothing is fundamentally different from the first Dance Central (except two player play)

Dance Central's back. And it brought friends. 

The Long

An easy review of this game could be this: Dance Central 2 is to Dance Central like Rock Band 2 was to Rock Band. Is there anything substantially different with the core mechanics between Dance Central 2 and the first game? No. Does it revolutionize anything the way the first game did? Not really. But Dance Central 2 takes many, many steps in the right direction, improving the already impressive framework established by Dance Central, and in so doing making what it easily the best game on the Kinect to date.

Graphically, not much has changed between games. I think the animations for the dancers are a bit smoother and easier to follow, the locals are better-looking and actually rotate between various versions of a scene (for example, you'll dance in a subway station, then on the subway, etc. during the same song). They axed a few dancers and put some new ones in, but as a whole the game still looks fantastic. They did make the character's outfits look a little less like plastic, which is appreciated. 

Angel's new sailor outfit makes him look like he'd be the entertainment at a bachelorette party. 

So instead of harping on what's stayed the same (since that's silly; read my Dance Central review for the fundamental mechanics of the series), I'm going to focus on the changes. And the first one is a big one and probably the main reason to pick this game up over the first game: two players. 

Yeah, this was kind of a big oversight in the first game, one I think I remember them saying they cut in some interview because of the pressure to release the game as a launch title. Well, they've made good and now you can dance two player, and as a bonus you can each dance on different difficulties. Let me just say: this doesn't sound like a big deal on paper, but it is huge. Remember the difference between Guitar Hero 1 and Guitar Hero 2? How they added the ability to play two-player in that? It went from being a game you played by yourself to a crazy party game (which was then doubled again when Rock Band added two more players to the mix). Adding another player to Dance Central 2 does this for this game as well, making the game more approachable for those shy friends ("You can just dance with me! It won't be as weird!") as well as just being more fun. 

Some new characters like Bodie (left) are surprisingly not obnoxious

The improvements in Break it Down mode are also worth noting. While it's still only a single player affair, you now have the option to skip moves you already have down (either because you've mastered them in this song or in another song), record yourself doing the move and watch it next to the actual performer to see where you are going wrong, work on just a specific section, and more. Considering the only way you'll get good at the hardest songs in the game is by breaking the moves down into pieces, this improvement is much appreciated.

Speaking of moves and difficulty, Dance Central 2 is much better than the first game with regards to picking moves for you to dance to. Similar to how Rock Band 2 had better musical charting when compared to Rock Band, Dance Central 2 adds tons of new moves. In the first game it was common to see a few moves crossing multiple songs, especially on Easy (where you basically just repeat the same 3-4 moves over and over. Boring!). In Dance Central 2 each routine is very unique, with very little crossover. This is both good because it adds variety, and bad because you'll have to learn a lot of new moves (which makes jumping between songs a little harder). Easy mode is also much better, with less repetition and instead mixing up handfuls of easier techniques. Hard difficulties before seemed like they took the framework in Easy and just swapped out harder moves in certain sections, but the dance was the same overall. Not so in Dance Central 2: Hard on most dances is a completely different beast. It's a little thing (I honestly don't think any other review online points this out) but it shows they put more time into figuring the moves out this time around.

It still goes all "neon" when the both of you hit a 4x multiplier. If just one of you has it, the associated player's avatar's hands will glow instead, which is a nice touch. 

There is also a career mode, though it seems...tacked on. Basically all the dancers in the game are paired up and put into "groups" (or "gangs," I guess), each with their own musical preference. As you can guess, Mo (aka the best character from the first game) has the best taste, with all the Daft Punk and techno/electric stuff, but the rest of the dances are good too. Baby's Got Back is just as raunchy and awful as it has always been, and the inclusion of Justin Bieber and Whip My Hair is really questionable. Luckily it makes up for it with more Lady Gaga (yeah...I think she's ok. Got a problem? Her dances are the best in the game, too) and a variety of other songs, so I guess it's forgivable. At any rate, career mode is just playing through a set number of songs to collect stars, then dancing a "boss" dance. Aka it's the same setup that we had back in Guitar Hero 1. We asked for a career mode, and they dropped back to the oldest setup in music games. Way to go, Harmonix. Do I have to wait for Dance Central 3 for you to add challenges and perfect the system like you did with Rock Band 3? Seems that way.

As stated, you have a good assortment of songs, made better by the fact you can export your entire Dance Central library into the game, as well as all your DLC. The DLC goes on sale constantly (I think we own all of the Dance Central 1 DLC, and got it all for around $30 total) so if you are aching for more songs this game has you covered. It's not as crazy as Rock Band's 3,000 song library, but it's still more songs than I'd ever want. 

The inclusion of kid dancers is weird, though. Mo, why you hanging out with that twerp? Almost everybody else at least got a lady partner. 

Everything else plays perfectly. The menues are still slick and very easy to navigate. The game's detection has actually improved between games (it was great before, but it seems even better now), which is good because the first game could never detect me right when I did moves that required me to walk around in a circle. It also seems to be more pickier on the harder difficulties vs the easier ones, which might just be my imagination but either way, I like it. There are some genuinely crazy dances in this game (though Teach Me How To Jerk from the first game is still the hardest damn song in the game...and Rihanna's Disturbia) and they cover a massive range of dance music (I'm really glad to see Daft Punk in here, and I hope they add more as DLC), so just about anybody will find something they like. The changes are subtle but really improve the experience, making this a game that, if you own a Kinect, you really have no excuse not to own. 

This is one of three game we bought last year on release date for the full $50 (though now that I think about it it was off Amazon...and it might have been $45...and I think they gave us a $10 Amazon credit...and $10 in MS points to export our songs from Dance Central...I love you, Amazon), but it fluctuates in price really weird. It was $15 on black friday along with Kinect Sports: Season 2, which is a freaking steal. If you liked the first game, grab this game at whatever price you find it at (it's $40 on Amazon right now). If you played the demo but are skeptical, I'd say $30-40 is still a safe point to test it out. It seriously is the very, very best reason to own a Kinect right now, and it's a total blast to boot.

A very deserving five out of five stars, should I be inclined to score it with stars. Keep making 'em like this, Harmonix, and hopefully other developers will stop making garbage Kinect games and follow your lead instead.