I came home from work the other day to find my son holding a package for me. He had been waiting for me all day to open it up so I said go for it. He tore into the package to find a copy of Just Dance 2 from Ubisoft for the Nintendo Wii. Instantly, horrid flashbacks of me trying to dance, in public no less, entered my mind and I sort of scoffed at the idea of having to perform rhythmic movements in front of my son.  My first intention was to let my son do this because, for one it was a new game for the Wii, and two I still was uncomfortable with the fact someone may peer into my living room and see me with a remote in hand swaying side to side in movements not really meant for the male gender.

The main focus of the game hasn’t really changed from its first release which means you will be standing in front of your TV and will be attempting to mimic the heat camera view of real 2D dancers on screen in front of you. The trick to the game in order to be successful I have found is that the more fluid you move, the easier it will be to score points, especially if you haven’t had anything to drink this evening and the first song available, this being the first choice when the game starts,  is “It’s Raining Men” by The Weather Girls. As you can tell there really isn’t much to the game, however it truly turns into a party game when you bring in a partner for the Duet Mode. In my case, I had a four year old standing next to me swinging his hands around in a horrible, yet much more rhythmic movement than I had, but it was fun to try and dance to Walk Like an Egyptian.

As we progressed through the various songs, it was nice to know that each song pretty much had their own dance moves to them, thus nothing was the same or recycled keeping the variety pretty good. In addition, if you are a loner and have no friends, probably because you have a sufficient paunch on hand, then the Just Sweat mode will be for you. Each day you run the game, you are set up with six songs to swing your arm to and a nice little calorie counter is displayed to show you how much you should be burning. Obviously it isn’t completely accurate, but it’s nice to know that your late night binge on Pop-Tarts is slowly burning off to Toxic by Britney Spears.

In the end, while I did enjoy it a bit, I am not a dancer and truly thank my wife that I am not forced to do this on a regular basis. My son, while only 4, did enjoy the music and the activity it gave him trying to match the dancers’ moves on screen. Which brings me to believe that although this game is very popular, it really is only for those that enjoy dancing or for large groups of drunken individuals ready to bring out some of that liquid courage and impress the opposite sex.

3.5 out of 5 Widows