The pr hit the wires Feb. 11th, yet nothing on GAF and nothing in GameSpot's Dbase. For shame. Thanks of IGN this topic is not pic-less. The press release (which makes some not-very-veiled jabs at DDR):
Video Game publisher Mastiff today announced they will publish Pump It Up, the hot dancing game storming through Latin America, the UK, France, and Korea, for the PlayStation©2 computer entertainment system and the Xbox® video game system from Microsoft. The arcade version of Pump It Up was recently featured in two national commercials and has appeared on television shows such as Steve Harvey's Big Time and The George Lopez Show.
While other dance games arbitrarily assign positions to a dancer's feet, Pump It Up features choreographed steps for each song and a five button mat that lets the step designers reward players for not just where they put their feet, but how the feet got there. The game features over 80 songs, including new music for the console version from cutting edge artists such as Grammy nominees Crystal Method and Steriogram, as well as Elvis vs. Junkie XL;, Earth, Wind and Fire; and Sugarhill Gang. Music familiar to fans of the arcade include top K-POP (Korean pop) acts like Sechs Kies, Honey Family, Clon and Novasonic, and songs like Beethoven Virus and Pump Me Amadeus by BanYa, the Pump It Up original band.
"It's hip, it's edgy, and it's the only game out there that's really about the dancing," said Bill Swartz, Head Woof at Mastiff. "Other dancing games are about watching the screen and stomping in the right spot, which is great if you didn't get enough whack-a-mole as a kid. Pump It Up gets you dancing like you're in a club."
James Ko, President of Andamiro USA says "We're delighted to be working with Mastiff to bring the greatest dance game in the world to your living room."
The console version of Pump It Up: Exceed is based on the arcade game Pump It Up: Exceed but, in addition to the new music features a wealth of new features including three entirely new modes: Home, Sudden Death, and Survival as well as a practice and tutorial mode. Like the arcade version, the home version will also allow players to log their high scores on a world-wide score board.
EDIT: A bit from IGN's first look:
But this is more than just DDR and it takes just one look at the mat to see why. First of all, the arrows have been spun 45 degrees and the four arrows are in the four corners of a square. In the middle there's an extra square "button," making the total number of buttons five.
The real advantage to the extra button is that this helps to make the game even better for adding more choreography to the dance moves that are required. To help us get an appreciation of this concept, Mastiff brought in their resident expert, a fellow named Smidget whose feet were flying faster than our eyes could quite handle. The dude was all over the two-pad arcade unit that was being used. And if mastery of this wasn't enough he was also throwing in some cartwheels and flips into the routine to make us extra humble. Doing a forward flip and landing one foot on a button in time with the music? Respect.
One of the ways that the game worked the choreography was with a section that had a sequence with a solid line of squares and different arrows. Pulling this off just as smooth as everything else he did, Smidget did a small tap-dancing routine where his left foot stayed on the square and the right foot walked around the edges, turning him around in a circle.
Video Game publisher Mastiff today announced they will publish Pump It Up, the hot dancing game storming through Latin America, the UK, France, and Korea, for the PlayStation©2 computer entertainment system and the Xbox® video game system from Microsoft. The arcade version of Pump It Up was recently featured in two national commercials and has appeared on television shows such as Steve Harvey's Big Time and The George Lopez Show.
While other dance games arbitrarily assign positions to a dancer's feet, Pump It Up features choreographed steps for each song and a five button mat that lets the step designers reward players for not just where they put their feet, but how the feet got there. The game features over 80 songs, including new music for the console version from cutting edge artists such as Grammy nominees Crystal Method and Steriogram, as well as Elvis vs. Junkie XL;, Earth, Wind and Fire; and Sugarhill Gang. Music familiar to fans of the arcade include top K-POP (Korean pop) acts like Sechs Kies, Honey Family, Clon and Novasonic, and songs like Beethoven Virus and Pump Me Amadeus by BanYa, the Pump It Up original band.
"It's hip, it's edgy, and it's the only game out there that's really about the dancing," said Bill Swartz, Head Woof at Mastiff. "Other dancing games are about watching the screen and stomping in the right spot, which is great if you didn't get enough whack-a-mole as a kid. Pump It Up gets you dancing like you're in a club."
James Ko, President of Andamiro USA says "We're delighted to be working with Mastiff to bring the greatest dance game in the world to your living room."
The console version of Pump It Up: Exceed is based on the arcade game Pump It Up: Exceed but, in addition to the new music features a wealth of new features including three entirely new modes: Home, Sudden Death, and Survival as well as a practice and tutorial mode. Like the arcade version, the home version will also allow players to log their high scores on a world-wide score board.
EDIT: A bit from IGN's first look:
But this is more than just DDR and it takes just one look at the mat to see why. First of all, the arrows have been spun 45 degrees and the four arrows are in the four corners of a square. In the middle there's an extra square "button," making the total number of buttons five.
The real advantage to the extra button is that this helps to make the game even better for adding more choreography to the dance moves that are required. To help us get an appreciation of this concept, Mastiff brought in their resident expert, a fellow named Smidget whose feet were flying faster than our eyes could quite handle. The dude was all over the two-pad arcade unit that was being used. And if mastery of this wasn't enough he was also throwing in some cartwheels and flips into the routine to make us extra humble. Doing a forward flip and landing one foot on a button in time with the music? Respect.
One of the ways that the game worked the choreography was with a section that had a sequence with a solid line of squares and different arrows. Pulling this off just as smooth as everything else he did, Smidget did a small tap-dancing routine where his left foot stayed on the square and the right foot walked around the edges, turning him around in a circle.
