Just Dance 3 Review

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The Just Dance franchise has given us many popular spin-offs including Dance on Broadway, Michael Jackson: The Experience and ABBA: You Can Dance. Just Dance 3 is the newest game released by Ubisoft for Wii. How good is it? Well it’s just as good as Just Dance 2, but ever so slightly better, and with all new 4 player dancing fun and the new Wii version also featuring a flash mob mode where you can use 8 Wii remotes to dance away. Add to that 40 new tracks and you have a fun-filled family dancing game.

Just Dance 3 sticks with the series’ tried and trusted easy to learn controls, with you using the Wii remote to follow on-screen dance moves to reach higher and higher points totals. A very simple control system, yes, but one that works and is accessible to all ages. You don’t even have to be a good dancer to enjoy this game, I found even the most rhythmically challenged person is allowed to gain confidence in their dance ability.

There is an all new Smart Shuffle mode which allows the dancers to undertake challenges that unlock songs and dance routines. And speaking of songs, the40 new ones included (with more coming via way of downloadable content) offer a highly varied collection including Lenny Kravitz’s Are You Gonna Go My Way, the Chemical Brothers’ Hey Boy, Hey Girl; Donna Summer’s I Feel Love and Madness’ Night Boat to Cairo. I think you will agree with me, that these are all very different, but one thing they have in common is that all 40 songs work. The dance routines are very well-choreographed and the moves themselves are easy to do, but hard to do well.

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The all-new 4 player dance routines are also very fun, songs such as Hit Me Baby One More Time and Earth Wind and Fire’s Boogie Wonderland sound great and the moves fit in perfectly. There is something oddly fulfilling about hitting the right move at the right time, even the Wii sensor has difficulty in reading some of your moves, especially the overhead arches and twists. The scoring system is also slightly less forgiving when compared to the other versions of Just Dance 3.

The graphics in Just Dance 3 are pretty much the same as in  Just Dance 2, but that’s not a bad thing as the bright, colorful and cheery mode is once again present here in abundance. It’s all about fluorescent colors and wildly changing backgrounds. The artistic nature of the avatars on screen also has an oddly calming effect on you as you’re playing a game whose goal it is to make your heart race.

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Of course, the focus of thegame is fun, and playing it certainly provides lots of entertainment. I also liked the fact that you don’t appear on screen, so as a crappy dancer you won’t feel self-conscious at all. Other dance games place you on screen, and if you don’t like how you look then it’s too bad. Ubisoft have made a clever choice here in not placing a live image of the player in front of you during dancing.

Overall, Just Dance 3’s greatest success is that it realises that the reason everyone is here is for some fun dancing where you don’t feel self-concious and can just let yourself go. I have never been the best mover in the world, but in this game I feel like one hell of a great dancer, so much so that I have even gone as far as challenging my whole family and group of friends (and won). The game has a nice clean feel to its menus, interactive nature, routines and the music.  Yes, there is not much of a change in gameplay when compared to previous games, but did there need to be? This is a winning formula that is only aided by the fantastic amount of songs and routines on offer. The all-new 4 play routines and flash mob modes add a lot to the replay value, and while this version this does suffer from some issues surrounding move recognition, to be honest even the XBox Kinect and PlayStation Move versions of Just Dance 3 have the same problems. I can really see this game being used in parties and, yes, I would dance in front of others. If you want a really fun game to play that will also burn calories and contain a lot of your favorite songs, then Just Dance 3 is for you. It’s time to shake that ass once again.

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary Nintendo Wii code was provided to Brash Games for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to editor@brashgames.co.uk.

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