Realizing that a serious approach to a dance-centric story mode would be a farce, Harmonix saturated the proceedings with some campy charisma and a ludicrous premise. As one of the dancefloor elite, you’re drafted into the top-secret Dance Central Intelligence agency for a mission of inter-dimensional importance: Going back in time to stop the unspeakable dance crimes of the evil Dr. Tan.

Characters and crews you’ve grown to love in the first games return as your timestream contacts, occupying five decades of dance spanning from the 1970s to modern day. From a story perspective, this is all absurdly amazing. Gameplay-wise, it means that this is the most diverse Dance Central soundtrack yet, offering hit singles and popular choreography from each era of dance culture.

You’ll master the groovy moves of The Hustle in the ‘70s, shimmy to the sounds of “Ice Ice Baby” in the’90s, and be taught the art of doing the Dougie in the aughts. Not every track in the 45-song setlist is a hit, but you’re guaranteed to find something to move your body to given the variety of genres and styles. While hopping around to Justin Bieber’s “Boyfriend” may be poison to your self-esteem, “Moves Like Jagger,” “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back),” and “Electric Boogie” all seem like they were destined to be danced to in front of a Kinect.

The single-player campaign offers plenty to sink your moves into, with level progression and unlockable characters–there’s even a dance-based boss fight. The multiple time periods make for great variety in the backdrops. One moment, you’re rocking a house party with Kid & Play-inspired moves; the next, you’re on a soundstage reminiscent of MTV’s Total Request Live.

For those who’ve played the previous Dance Central iterations, the gameplay will immediately feel familiar. Mirroring the moves of the on-screen dancer, you’ll use the incoming flashcards as cues for your next piece of choreography. You’ll still get feedback on the limbs that are out of sync with the rest of your rhythmic movements, and there’s really no way to “Fail” a song.

While this tried-and-true system feels as satisfying as ever, it still runs into a tiny logistical problem. Given that the flashcards can only convey so much, it’s all but impossible to ace a song on your first try before you’ve seen the basics of all the moves. This takes away the possibility for “sight reading” a song by nailing it without prior practice, a staple of the rhythm game genre. But hopping into Rehearsal will prep you just fine, and the choreography is well-designed: Easy mode gives the moves accessible simplicity and lenient detection, while playing songs on Hard demands the exactness, timing, and stamina of an adept dancer.

One minor quibble is the method for progressing through each era of dance. To jump forward in time, you need to find and “decode” four fragments of era-appropriate Dance Crazes, like YMCA and the Macarena. These sequences will be hidden within the songs of that decade, and accurately mimicking them unlocks the keys to advancing. But if a particularly tricky move is buried at the end of a song, or you just can’t seem to nail a certain move, you might get stuck in a frustrating loop of replaying the same song until you get it right. It’s not likely to ruin your fun, but it seems like there should’ve been a better way to stagger the single-player progression.

The party-friendly multiplayer reaches new revelry heights in DC3 thanks to the encouraging jump-in/jump-out play and fresh modes. Though the number of simultaneous dancers is capped at two, up to eight players can duke (and dance) it out thanks to the amusing Crew Throwdown mode which enables competitive teamplay. Keep the Beat is a perfect mode for freeform dancing, and only requires that you move in time to the music; Strike a Pose is an exhilarating blitz of movement as you try to mimic as many onscreen poses as possible.

Make Your Move is the best of the new modes, facilitating a HORSE-style “observe and repeat” dance-off that deftly detects your moves (and even assigns them cute little names). You won’t want to play these modes for hours on end, but they’ll no doubt provide great entertainment at your next social gathering. Then again, you probably won’t even be able to play for hours on end: The fun, energetic choreography doubles as an enjoyable workout, and you’re guaranteed to break a sweat after dancing your heart out over a handful of tracks.

As a complete package, Dance Central 3 is the best dance game yet. Whether you want to boogie with a bunch of friends or perfect your routines in single-player, Harmonix has hooked you up with plenty of gratifying options. This may not be the end-all-be-all of motion-controlled movin’ and groovin’, but it once again gives the Kinect a glorious, life-of-the-party purpose.

The post Dance Central 3 review appeared first on Game News.

Above: Outside of the videos you’ll be recreating, the game itself is visually sparse

In a nutshell, the Yoostar franchise is visual karaoke. Yoostar on MTV takes that deep dark desire to insert yourself into scenes and music videos from the network and delivers that ability to the comfort and privacy of your home. Using Kinect’s camera you position yourself to replace whatever actor or artist you want to recreate while lines or lyrics are displayed above your scene. Timing bars signal when your line or lyric should be recited and your performance is recorded, scored and played back after the scene is completed.

From a technical standpoint, the game works just as described. We did experience some quirks in audio when we were in a party setting where a half a dozen people singing LMFAO in unison was considered as too much background noise whereas the same group singing Lady Gaga earned us multiple perfect lyric scores. Further tests would be needed to determine if the game is just anti-Party Rocking.

Above: We’re still waiting for our own GamesRadar reality show, MTV

There are over 80 scenes from MTV series and music videos with more clips delivered via DLC, so if you’ve invested any time into the network in the last three or four years you’ll probably find something you’d be willing to try. However, those of us who stopped watching MTV when they stopped playing music videos will be hard pressed to find any interest in the game at all as the music videos are much newer than some of the series available.

Above: A sampling of some of the titles you can recreate scenes from

The biggest problem with Yoostar on MTV lies in the fact that you have to be invested in MTV to find enjoyment in it. A majority of the content relies on clips from MTV franchises and it doesn’t do well as just a music karaoke game because you’re only allowed to perform portions of a song. While the novelty of inserting yourself into scenes is fun at first it easily wears thin after a time and waiting to save clips after a successful performance can disrupt the momentum of play.

A potentially good rental title for those that fall squarely into the target MTV demographic, Yoostar delivers what it advertises but won’t be a game that you’ll regret passing on.

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