Pump It Up: Exceed Bundle PS2 Review

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(More customer reviews)I've been playing DDR(Import versions) since it came out for PSOne and was sort of growing tire of it when I was getting to play PS2 versions(US versions)- then heard about "Pump It Up", which is suppose to be more popular than DDR in Asia, Europe, and South America regions- and decided to give it a try; and understood why it was more popular in other regions after few tries.

I definitely agree with other reviews that it feels more of dance moves than just stepping like DDR; Pump it Up added only one more step button in middle and changed '+' format of DDR into 'X' format instead. However, result is quite different because you gotta cover more space and extra step to fill in, resulting in dance-like movement and more rhythm to dance to.

Yes, I guess if you are THE veteran in DDR, you could probably do the headspin and 360 and all, but casual players like me felt more of dance movement because of the middle step button.It's only an extra stepping button yet it's like math where 2square (2x2)is 4 but 3square (3x3) is 9, exponentially giving more variation/freedom to the player.

I did some research when I decided to purchase this game and the feedbacks were overwhelmingly positive; one of my concerns was what if they give you this crappy dance pad since it's coming out at the end of PS2's life cycle??I did a direct comparison with DDR dance pad (one that came as a package with DDR Extreme, 3rd installment in PS2) and not only it has better surface feel to it (more of synthetic nylon feel instead of sorta 'sticky' plastic feel of DDR if you play in bare feet; I always had to wear socks to play DDR but don't need to do that with PIU) but most importantly it has more 'meat' to the dance pad, which is easier on your feet for a long playing time (I play about an hour- looking for a cardio workout??).

Like I said I'm a casual player, but I consider myself pretty good in DDR since I've been playing it for years...and could pretty much cover all the difficult levels in DDR... yet it was a different story with PUMP.May be I haven't gotten familiarized with the 'X' format quite yet, but it becomes way too hard if you are trying to finish even a 'hard' mode(ok, I just blew my cover as a 'pretty good' in DDR... hehe..but PUMP is objectively harder than DDR... try 'CRAZY' or 'NIGHTMARE' mode...you better be in a good shape).

I used to love DDR when it first came out... The idea was refreshing, and I could feel the effort of people involved in making DDR on every step I took on DDR dance pad- yet I feel recent versions have been more of rehash instead of 'evolutionary'; I don't really feel 'soul' in them anymore.

Well, if you are into DDR (or have grown tired of DDR these days)or looking for a dancing game (seriously, just play this sucker for an hour everyday and see what happens) then give Pump It Up a try because you will fall in love with it like I have.Last DDR game lasted only couple days...yeah...but PIU looks even more promising after two weeks of playing. It's probably because of various genre over more than 100 songs and creative background video for each one of them (I believe some of background videos are so cute like cartoons..even kids in elementary will love them).

Ok.. gotta go now for another round of PUMP IT UP...I'm out of shape

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