"Who wants to show her how to play Just Dance 2" the helpful PR said, as a shower of enthusiastic hands shot up into the air, and a group of games developers approached me. "Uh oh", I wondered to myself, letting my insecurities fill my brain, "is this just because I'm female?", seeing as I seem to get no end of friend invites on the Xbox 360, accompanied by questions such as "Are you really a girl?" and "Do you have a boyfriend?", and more chat invites than I know what to do with. But having played the game, I honestly don't think it had anything to do with me. The developers were keen to show me, because, well, they like what they've created. They're proud of it, they're want to show it off to someone who they hope will be able to appreciate it, and, it seems, they still have fun just playing it.
So that's how I stepped up to have a go on Just Dance 2. Now, I suck at dancing. If you think you're bad, you can bet I'm at least ten times worse. The mega-patient dance teacher at school gave up on me - and during one class performance, we were told to "just drop out when we can't remember the rest" - I was the first to drop out by far, after about three dance steps. So needless to say, I was probably going to suck at Just Dance 2, but armed with the ability to laugh at myself, I took the Wii Remote from the curly-haired French man who was showing me the game.
He asked what song I would like to play - I told him something easy, because "I'm awful at dancing", to which he assured me I "couldn't be that bad" (obviously he's never seen me dance - I notice that towards the end, when I said I couldn't dance he just laughed, rather than reassure me). For the first song we settled on "Idealistic" by Digitalism, a crazy electronica dance thing, as it was one of the easiest songs in the game (supposedly). It mostly seemed to involve a fair amount of mock-shooting with the Wii Remote, and some crazy robot-style moves. And I was awful at it. The curly-french man, who had told me he was also awful at dancing, and that I couldn't be any worse than him, scored over 9000... I scored 512.
Ahhh... Idealistic by Digitalism... I have painful memories of this song...
Next we tried another easy song in the form of James Brown's "I Feel Good", which I guess was supposed to go something like this:
Needless to say, I didn't look anything like that - although I did get my all time high score of 1119 points... And probably embarrassed myself even more than I did on the first song.
But even though I was really, really bad at dancing (I didn't really expect anything better, really), Just Dance 2 was surprising amounts of fun, especially once I'd worked out that you had to be quite exaggerated in your movements - rather than just gently flicking and waving the Wii Remote around, as I'd previously been doing. So much so, I was actually contemplating getting the original game, although I know I'll probably be too embarrassed to ever play it...
If you've never played Just Dance, it is quite simple to pick up and play - you just hold the Wii Remote in your hand, and follow the on-screen moves, following the positions of the little stick man in the corner/your on screen avatar, and letting the motion-sensing capabilities of the Wii Remote do the rest. As it says, you just... dance!
Even that stick man is way better at dancing than me...
Just Dance 2 - the sequel to the much-loved Just Dance - builds on what Just Dance did, and adds a whole host of new modes and more songs than before. There are 44 tracks on offer this time round, from a whole range of genres, each of which is not only rated by difficulty, but by sweatiness - showing how much of a workout each song should give you:
- Avril Lavigne - "Girlfriend"
- Bangles - "Walk Like An Egyptian"
- Beastie Boys - "Body Movin' (Fatboy Slim Remix)"
- Benny Benassi presents "The Biz" - "Satisfaction"
- Blondie - "Call Me"
- Bollywood - "Katti Kalandal"
- Boney M. - "Rasputin"
- Charleston - "Mugsy Baloney"
- Cher - "The Shoop Shoop Song (It's In His Kiss)"
- Digitalism - "Idealistic"
- Donna Summer - "Hot Stuff"
- Elvis Presley - "Viva Las Vegas"
- Fatboy Slim - "Rockafeller Skank"
- Franz Ferdinand - "Take Me Out"
- Harry Belafonte - "Jump In The Line"
- Ike & Tina Turner - "Proud Mary"
- James Brown - "I Got You (I Feel Good)"
- Jamiroquai - "Cosmic Girl"
- Junior Senior - "Move Your Feet"
- Justice - "D.A.N.C.E."
- Ke$ha - "TiK ToK"
- Mardi Gras - "Iko Iko"
- Marine Band - "Sway (Quien Sera)"
- MIKA - "Big Girl (You Are Beautiful)"
- Outkast - "Hey Ya!"
- Quincy Jones & His Orchestra - "Soul Bossa Nova"
- Reggaeton - "Baby Girl"
- Rihanna - "S.O.S."
- Snap! - "The Power"
- Sorcerer - "Dagomba"
- Studio Allstars - "Jump"
- Studio Musicians - "Crazy In Love"
- Studio Musicians - "Jungle Boogie"
- Supergrass - "Alright"
- The Frighteners - "Monster Mash"
- The Hit Crew - "Holiday"
- The Hit Crew - "Toxic"
- The Jackson 5 - "I Want You Back"
- The Pussycat Dolls - "When I Grow Up"
- The Rolling Stones - "Sympathy For The Devil (Fatboy Slim Remix)"
- The Ting Tings - "That's Not My Name"
- The Weather Girls - "It's Raining Men"
- Vampire Weekend - "A-Punk"
- Wham! - "Wake Me Up Before You Go Go"
Along with the old 'Classic' mode of the original Just Dance game, where you just dance (did you see what I did there?) along to the tracks to get a score, there are also a few new multiplayer modes - including one where up to eight people can split into teams and compete in a dance off, which we can only imagine will involve some frantic Wii remote passing, like a sweaty, plastic baton. There's also a 'Duet' mode, where two people dance to the same song using dance steps and poses that fit around what the other player is doing. For those of you that like to get a little bit more out of your dance sessions, there's even the new 'Just Sweat' mode - which keeps a count of the calories you're burning as you're dancing along to your favourite song.
Just Dance 2 should be due out over here on 15th October this year, priced at around £29.99 RRP. And if you like dancing games, stay tuned for 'How I embarrassed myself at Gamescom, Part 2', when I played the new Kinect game, Dance Central, for the Xbox 360.
